Oh, peace symbol, we hardly knew ye.

Two days ago, I was vividly reminded of why I never go to the mall.

(Borders is not part of the mall. When I go in the general vicinity of the mall, I ONLY go to Borders. I park outside Borders and do not set foot in the rest of the mall. A bookstore cannot be considered to be part of whatever buildings are attached to it. That's like being the bookstore inside a church: just because there's a sanctuary nearby doesn't make it holy. Likewise, just because Borders is attached to the mall doesn't mean it's as superfluous and contaminated as the rest of the mall.)

During the week that is infamously known as Spring Break, the mall is apparently infested with small herds of size zero bulimic tweens dressed like Vegas streetwalkers on a Saturday night, all too young to jet to Cancun, but still attempting to break into the harshly competitive world of "Girls Gone Wild." A cousin of mine coined a term for such creatures: prostitots. Say it aloud and it makes some sense. It's cruel, but apt. Poor girls. I wanted to simultaneously encourage them to feel secure in themselves, cover them with one of those cheap bathrobes from Sears, and chastise them for being such foolhardy youngsters. It was a conflicting set of emotions. I settled for a mild glare and a "back in my day, when it snowed all the time and I walked uphill both ways to school" head shake.

Also, apparently sometime in the last six years that I haven't been inside the mall, Hot Topic made some sort of corporate Faustian deal. They are no longer nonconformist, dark and handsome, as they once were: they are...like some sort of gay emo, torn between wearing black eyeliner and writing depressing poetry and covering themselves in rainbows and pleasant odors. I wandered on by, disappointed that I cannot love Jack Skellington because Hot Topic does.

One of the girls I was with was searching for a simple brown skirt, so I followed along behind her and our other two girlfriends as they all went into Epic Shopping Mode. I'm fairly certain that's a real mode, and that I was born without it. Shopping confounds and frustrates me. I wear jeans until they are as worn as their name brand, deliberately ripped counterparts in Aeropostale and American Eagle. Then I wear them another three months, then I go to Kohl's clearance racks and buy another pair for $9. That is the extent of my shopping. Shopping is like personalized, drawn out torture for me.

Anyway.

We browsed through every clothing store in that mall. By "we," I mean "they," as in, "I stared off into space as they clattered about among the hangers."

As we went along, I spotted a trend. (Ha, I made a pun. Or...wait. No, I didn't. Nevermind.) In every store, on almost every article of clothing, there was a peace symbol. On hoodies, on dresses, on jeans, on T-shirts and scarves - on underwear, for God's sake. Now, I'm a proponent of peace. I wear the peace symbol on a ring almost every day,as a reminder of a book I read once. I'm not a fan of war or the hypocritical monsters it makes of participating countries - and people.

Symbols have power. That is something we seem to have forgotten as a culture: how symbols, made meaningful by agreement, represent whole ideologies, whole movements, events and people, entire stories.

Take the cross. It represents the all stories of the New Testament - a sign of an entire religion, the wars and the movements therein, and when combined with each individual's worldview, a life history.It is a symbol that can inspire hate or love instantly, that people will rally behind or against, that people dedicate their lives to building up or destroying.

Symbols have power.

The peace symbol is not a fashion statement. When wearing any symbol, one should be ready to be accepted as a proponent of the ideas that symbol represents. Or, in my book, they should. But then, I'm an old-fashioned idealist.

In 1951, America rested some submarines burdened with nuclear weapons at a British harbor. A group of college students protested the situation by picketing at the docks, claiming their mantra of "Nuclear Disarmament." Using British Navy semaphore letters - the messages sent between British ships in earlier times by men on deck who mimed coded letters - "N" and "D" were the acronym they chose. "N" in semaphore letters is represented with one arm raised straight towards the sky and one pressed down against the body, forming a line perpendicular to the earth. "D" is formed with both arms pointed downward on either side of the body at forty-five degree angles. Superimpose one upon the other and paint a circle around them, and you've got the peace symbol.

Ten years later, the symbol was adopted by American college students, and was hugely controversial. It was spray-painted across walls as the Vietnam war progressed, and many students who toted the sign on clothes or notebooks were expelled, had scholarships revoked, were placed on academic probation, ostracized, hazed, or even beaten.

It was not a benign symbol. As it moved into the realm of protests it became a sign associated with violence, danger and the skewed visions of youth. At riots, students wearing the peace sign were the main targets of the fire hoses, gas bombs and billy clubs.

The generation that was middle-aged in the sixties feared the changes that their children were so desperate for. They began to speak of the peace symbol as "the broken cross," a vicious anti-Christian misnomer that has been culturally retained even to my childhood years. I heard it called that inside the walls of the church where I grew up.

It was a step of social rebellion to wear the peace symbol in the 1960s, and no one did so without knowing the sign's significance. It was a somber decision and a reflection of strongly held personal values. The peace sign was not a fashion statement then, and it isn't now.

But it is a statement. It speaks through three simple lines and a circle of a rich history, of a different time and different people who inhabited a not so very different world - and it is still dangerous.

It worries me that a symbol that once held such intense power has become so impotent. When symbols lose their power, it means that people have become less aware, and less active. It means not only that they know less, but that they are willing to know less.

I stood in a store - Deb, Wet Seal, something like that; they're all the same - and gazed at a rack of clothes. Six shirts in a row sported different versions of the peace sign. And I'm not kidding you: I almost cried.

Overlooked, underrated and without definite direction.

This - I guess it's a blog? I am loathe to use the word but there really isn't any other, I suppose. *shudder* - blog shall be much less linear and organized than my last, and without a real point. Oh well. It's almost spring break, and I need to WRITE SOMETHING or I will explode. And Avalon guts are hard to clean. There isn't enough club soda in all the world for that mess.

So, yesterday. Yesterday was an odd day overall. Or...no. Let's go back to Monday. This isn't a diary, so I'm not giving you a synopsis of my week or a play-by-play of my life, since I'm not nearly exciting enough to warrant that kind of attention, but it's significant to my point, really.

Anyway. Monday. I was hanging outside with a friend as he took a smoke break from our class (standing upwind, of course, so I wouldn't start lecturing him on costly suicide) and watching people as they walked by. I saw a young man in gym wear, athletic type. His head was down, his eyes on the ground. He walked like he didn't want to talk to anyone. Ever. I saw a girl, not built like Barbi, but very pretty. She too avoided eye contact. And as I fell into my socially-frowned-upon tendency to stare, gradually ignoring my chimney-like buddy, I realized that people's fears show on their faces, in the way they move. That runner feared failure and being subpar. That poor girl feared rejection and being alone. And so it was for every face that passed, each expressing their fears because they tried so hard to hide them. I wonder what fears show in my face.

Perhaps I place far too much emphasis on intuition. But, the way I see it, we have intuition for a reason, no? As long as we pay attention to it without granting it control, it serves a useful purpose. Just like fear. Fear is necessary: it keeps us attentive, aware, and, in many cases, alive. It is not a thing to be conquered into oblivion as so many think, but tamed and harnessed to usefulness. It is a part of being human, but it need not be all there is to being human.

Fear is an interesting thing. It does odd things to people, causes them to act in ways they wouldn't normally. And I'm not talking about moments of terror that alter lives forever, though those are also focal points of change. Everyday fears that press continually upon the soul - they mold us, if we let them.

My mother has a favorite quote about fear. It was said by a mystic scholar (no, I don't know how that works, don't ask me) named Rumi, and it reads, "Our greatest fears are like dragons, guarding our greatest treasures." It took me years to understand what that means. It's along the same lines as another of my mom's mantras, "Our greatest strengths are also often our greatest weaknesses." That one was also cryptic to me growing up, but I think I get them now.

But how to explain them? Hm. As usual, someone else said it better than I possibly can: T.H. White, in "The Once and Future King," wrote on how much Lancelot loathed himself for his weaknesses. "He saw in himself," White wrote, "cruelty and cowardice - the things that made him brave and kind." Our fears influence us, steer us, and alter us accordingly. We react to our fears by acting opposite of how we would think to act under their influence.

Aristotle said that we value in our friends the attributes we desire most in ourselves. So, the facets of your friends that you love most are the characteristics you desire to grow in you. We're attracted to those whom we admire, because we want to emulate certain aspects of them ourselves.

So why do people fear so intensely things that shouldn't matter? Why did that girl worry about rejection based on physicality? Aren't there more important things in life that that? And that guy, fearing that he won't live up the the expectations of others? I wish people were more secure in themselves. I wish people examined their lives more deeply, and decided what was important to them. I wish I did that more often.
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I saw a reverse emo today on the bus. His pale white hair fell into his eyes in the same nonconformist way that all other people wishing to express teenage angst style theirs. His white shell necklace was bright on his tan skin, and his iridescent white-painted nails glittered in the sunlight. His khakis, though baggy and frayed, conveyed a general respect for the establishment, as did his black shoes that were accented by linear lines of white-out. It was like viewing a film negative of a real emo. I felt like taking notes, but then I realized he might stab me if I tried to make him an anthropology case study.
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So, I spoke about Monday. Now for yesterday, Wednesday. I woke up exhausted after a decent amount of sleep - more than usual, for me - and spent my morning in a funk. Then afternoon came, and I had nowhere special to be for about 40 minutes, so I took a walk, hoping the sunlight and air would make me feel better. I walked slowly, meandering, with nowhere particular to be and no real directive. It was warm, and the breeze was perfect, and I just went where my feet took me (I eventually ended up by the anthropology department, but the fact that I can walk all the way across campus without noticing is another problem for another discussion). I began to walk using senses other than sight, just for the hell of it.

Now, let me explain that. I'm not entirely crazy: when I worked in a cave all last summer, I grew very accustomed to not using my eyes. If you walk with your eyes closed (don't trip) you'll begin to notice how the air around you changes on your skin, and direct yourself with sound and smell rather than sight. It's a pretty neat experience.

Anyway, I was walking and smelling and hearing and just feeling the air and I began to notice how people experience one another. You can identify gender by the sound of a step, and as people walk by, you smell them after you have seen them, because their scent wafts out behind. It's very interesting to wander, greet people as they go by, and then place with them a smell moments later. I could smell Chinese food, cologne, perfume, diesel, cut grass for some strange reason since everything's dead right now, cig smoke - if you smell long enough to can begin to recognize different brands, though I don't really recommend it - and hear tones of voices and conversations and music in cars and different kinds of engines and wind and birds and the angry whine of that little golf cart that speeds haphazardly around campus with some sort of indefinable purpose...but the smell of rain was almost overpowering. I love the smell of rain. It's possibly the best smell in the history of the world. I walked about half a mile, just smelling the coming rain, and then the first droplets fell. There's nothing else in all of existence like rain. I took off my hat as students fled indoors and just experienced the cleansing of the world, beautiful and primal and pure.

And...I am starting to sound like a down-and-out poet. I should really stop. Sorry that this doesn't have a point. My brain's been a little helter-skelter lately. Doubtless I'll have something purposeful to say over the weekend, as I have nothing to do but think and write over spring break, which pleases me. Happy weekend! Carpe diem, and all such well-wishes.

-Avalon

It goes like this: we have no choice.

My parents bought me a new desk chair the other day, because my old one broke. It's a very nice chair, black leather and with some sort of device built into it that allows it to spin perpetually, apparently. It's just wide enough for me to sit Indian style, which I love to do despite the fact that it's terrible for my legs. It was a kind gift for them to give me: to a writer, a desk chair is something akin to a throne, and is thus kind of a staple of my daily existence.

This is the first thing I've written, really, from my new throne. I guess I should make it more exciting quickly so as to keep your attention. Maybe you'll read all the way to the end, if I say something worthwhile enough.

So, to begin.

I have this issue with staring at people while I think. I creep a lot of people out on a daily basis because I forget quite often that it's not socially appropriate to just stare at people. So anyway, there's been a great deal on my mind recently, and I was thinking about it all while I was sitting at that stop light at H83 and Academy, waiting to turn left and head into the city. I was staring at the people in the cars around me, and I was listening to the CD "Maroon," by the Barenaked Ladies, which is amazing for all sorts of reasons. The song "Sell Sell Sell" was playing, and I really listened to the lyrics for the first time. They fit my thoughts:

"The credits roll, the camera pans
And in the mist our hero stands
He starts to speak, then folds his hands in prayer
An awkward pause, then what's my line?
There's nothing left to say this time
And what would you say to a bad guy who's not there?
In terms of Roman numerals,
He's IV league with Roman Polanski
He'd win an Oscar every time if he was only given the chance

He started on the Broadway stage
A product of another age,
An offer and a pilot drew him west
The series bombed, commercials came
And though nobody knew his name
They all recognized the potential he possessed
Deodorants and dental floss
And how much does that new car cost
His acting was methodical in You Don't Need A Medical
He's branded like a racing car,
He's like a movie star with movies
The week of Independence Day,
The casting agent called to say
Your smile could save our movie and the world

Buy buy buy buy
Sell sell sell
How well you learn
To not discern
Who's foe and who is friend
We'll own them all in the end

It goes like this, we have no choice; the minarets,
The wailing voice
And vaguely Celtic music fills the air
We choose a foreigner to hate,
The new Iraq gets more irate
We really know nothing about them, and no one cares
Aladdin and the forty thieves
Enhanced by brand new special effects
Saddam and his cow disease spiced up
With some gratuitous sex
A movie's made, a war is won
A low-speed chase, a smoking gun
Distracts us while the actor takes the stand

Buy buy buy buy
Sell sell sell
How well you learn
To not discern
Who's foe and who is friend
We'll own them all in the end."

Especially the part about having no choice. Perhaps I should explain my train of thought a little better. I feel like I'm gibbering.

See, when I started college, I took some classes in moral theory - that is, why people act the way they do. I developed this theory that I called "Social Revolution versus Homeostasis." Basically, it states that a culture is either changing or it isn't, and only great tragedy can move a culture from one level to the other. Yeah, real creative, right? But it made sense to me. I presented it to some of the philosophy department and it was accepted moderately well, though it had some holes that I never could fill.

I forsook this theory two nights ago. I was at a friend's house, staring at the white stucco on his wall, and I realized that I was wrong. My concept of homeostasis was hugely flawed. Society, culture, they never stand still. They are always changing, morphing, one thing into another, never back again and always at a crossroads. Just as people are never the same. Every moment, come and gone and forgotten or remembered, is different. Nothing is ever the same. So my theory was wrong.

Or, at least, most of it was. I still think that great tragedy is the only thing that forces a society to change. And that's awful, isn't it? That we come together all at once under one banner that is never painted anything but crimson?

So, why do we act the way we do? Why is it that blood must flow in rivers before we fix anything?

I think - and I'm just thinking in type, here - I think it's because we perceive that we have no choice. "It goes like this: we have no choice," that song goes. That line rang out while I was sitting in traffic, watching the cars go by on Academy, some towards the Interstate, some towards the city, looking at the faces of the people that drove by. Some were on their phones, some were alone, some were with family or friends. Some were in business clothes and some were in jeans; some drove SUVs or sedans, some drove sports cars, some drove hooptys.

And despite the fact that their faces were different, they all wore the same expression. They all had the same shadow behind their eyes. Mistrust, skepticism, wariness. Isolation.

"Man thinks they are each alone in this world," said the character Story in "Lady in the Water, "It is not true. You are all connected. One act can one day affect all."

God said, "It was not good for man to be alone." So he made Eve.

We are creatures hardwired for connectedness. You could make the argument that we are pack animals, so to speak. We are designed to function as a group, to be together, to love, to touch, to hold.

And we've forgotten that, haven't we?

Our culture teaches us that if you work hard enough by yourself, and step on enough necks, and push individually, not only can you reach the top, but you can change the world, all by yourself. The media tells us the same thing, rife with stories of scripted success that could never be real.

You can't.

I'm torn by that, because I like to work alone. If I work alone toward whatever goal, I don't endanger others by my failures and I can revel in my successes by myself. I love being alone. But if it had to be for forever, I'd much rather have someone with me than be alone.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was not alone. His name, and so many other names, do not survive today because they were only one person at a time. They were people with the courage to rise to the head of a group of others who shared their passion. Man can do nothing alone. Even Jesus had His disciples.

Our society tells us that you can't trust anyone. That every attempt you make to reach out to someone will be a detriment to you. That it's not okay to hold someone you love because your intent will be misread.

And I'm sick of it. I'm sick and tired of being too cautious. I'm weary of not smiling at people on the street because it's not "appropriate." And I'm more than exhausted of second-guessing every casual touch I direct to the men I love most dearly because of my worry that it will be misconstrued as something other than completely platonic, if fierce and passionate, love. Some of the people I love most are men, and I want to be able to not subject my every movement to some socially expected scrutiny.

People are made for each other. We are not meant to function alone. And I wish we knew that better. If we each stand alone, we will each fall. But if we stand together, maybe, just maybe, we can rise from the ashes of this self-absorbed, petulant, frivolously obsessed culture into a brighter age.

Did you know that you need to receive at least thirteen hugs of five to eleven second duration EVERY DAY to achieve stable brain chemistry?

Did you know that most people have less than TWO real, true friends?

Do you know your neighbor's name? How about the guy who sits next to you in class? The bus driver? The janitor? Your professor? When was the last time you talked to your parents, or your siblings?

How long, at this rate, will it take for us to destroy ourselves with this violent, inbred mistrust?

How often do you bite your tongue in conversation about important topics because you worry about offending others, or being judged? How many times, in any given day, are you offended by what others say or do? Can you do anything about that? What?

It goes like this, we have no choice.

Do we have a choice? Is this the way things have to be? I don't think so. I don't think that's the case, at all. But it will remain the case and continue to change in that way, towards loneliness and isolation and mistrust and disconnectedness, unless we start to fix it, and start now.


(I should say that these thoughts are not just mine. They are the progression of a long conversation I had with a very, very wise man, who got me thinking. I couldn't have developed these without him, and they are his as much as they are mine.)

Avalon, out.

I was born in the wrong century.

First, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1157784/Do-mysterious-stones-mark-site-Garden-Eden.html

Really, I've nothing spectacular to say. I've been studying all things classical over the last couple of years, and I've learned that there was much known by ancient man that we've completely forgotten. We don't know how Stonehenge was raised. We can't recontruct the pyramids. We can't sustain empires for decades, let alone centuries. We erect no monuments that will last thousands of years after we are gone. On the contrary: if all people were to die, all sign of our existence would be erased within several centuries. But the monoliths of the Aztecs, Greeks and Egyptians will remain long after that.

Early man knew how to live. They ate gluten-free, living off nuts, fruits and buried foods - which is so much better for you. The advent of agriculture has done immense and irreperable damage to the human physiology. And corn? God, corn can't even reproduce itself. If we let the land fallow, all corn would be exhausted in one generation, and there would be no more. Barley? That's not even a naturally occuring plant. We made that s*** up by crossbreading rye (a weed at the time) with wheat for larger yield.

We produce no epic poetry, no marble statues that will outlive us. The art we make is of balloons and darts and can be reproduced by a kindergartener. In ancient Greece, being a copiest was a prestigious job that required immense skill - and being an original artist was close to divine.

Who are our heroes? Sure, the names of world leaders will live on, because we are meticulous in tracking time, even if what occurs within that time is of little import. Our heroes are celebrities, movie stars, musicians. Why do you think the gossip ring is so thriving? Bradgelina is the contemporary Zeus, whose exploits are relayed during dinner conversation and around the water cooler. These are our role models, our inspirations and our representations of the supposed pinnacle of humankind. I don't know about you, but that depresses me a little. Not that the gods of old are great role models, but I hope you get my drift.

But we did invent superheroes. I guess there's something to be said for that. We have taken and run with the idea of the hero. We also invented the anti-hero, of which I am an ardent fan. And we birthed comic books, which I guess could produce the arguement as epic poetry. I don't know. I feel more and more that I should have been born centuries ago, after the Stone Age but before the division of labor between the sexes, when genders were more equal than they are even today. But mostly, I'm kinda bored at work. Mm. Enjoy.