I Am That HERO!!

Maure has a delightful story on her site about Wonder Woman Underoos.  I too have been thinking about Underoos.  We have two boys who are just the right age and size for Underoos so we have invested in Superman, Batman, and the like.  Do you remember Underoos?  I remember that our parents insisted that like Clark Kent we could wear our superhero clothes, UNDER our clothes instead of running around the neighborhood in our underpants.  And nothing made you feel more like a real live superhero than putting on your Underoos still hot from the dryer.

I've heard the suggestion that we contact Fruit of the Loom with a plea for adult sized underoos.  The whole point of the Underwear that's Fun to Wear is that you get to pretend, you get to try on for size the person you want to be when you grow up.  I was just saying to Tim the other day that I'd really like to figure out who I'm going to be when I grow up, and I can see a lot of value in Underwear that encourages some focus on the project.  I'm certain there would be a market for the adult version.

Creativity is called for though.  While there will always be a market for Batman, Superman, Wonderwoman, and the like, I'd like to see them put some thought into the kind of heros that I'd really shell out the bucks for.  I can picture Tim wearing an Alan Greenspan costume with little gold lame' dollar signs around the waistband.  I can see him now, jumping on the bed and yelling "By the power of Prime Rate!  I AM GrEeNsPaN!"

Batgirl Underoos were cut with a little bra and panties instead of the full tee-shirt.  I've been trying to think how they could make an adult version of this suit that still contained the essential information we need to enact the fantasy, but I can't figure how to make an Elizabeth Cady Stanton costume with just those little wisps of cloth.  Maybe if we include a wig?  Of course, if we want to really sell to women a Xena set would be cool, that little drop waisted skirt is slimming.

The Thermal Underwear version gives a little more fabric to work with.  At least we'd have a full body to impose a pattern on, and the option for pockets.  I can't imagine how superheroes get along without a purse, much less a pocket for keys, cell phone, or other essentials.  But, the real selling point is that thermal undies cover.  The full body of two or three supermodels could be imposed on a set of thermals sized for a normal adult woman.  Kate Moss could be printed on the side with her head nestled in my armpit.  No matter which side I have turned toward the mirror, I see nothing but supermodel.

And now - because I have the photo in my archives and some of you haven't seen it, I'm ending my essay with Quiltnmomi as the Warrior Princess.

Freedom from Want

When Roosevelt gave his speech and Rockwell illustrated his Four Freedoms, both of them envisioned Freedom from Want as primarily answering the need to decrease political strife that prevents people around the world from having the opportunity to provide for themselves and their families.  Considering want from a paternal viewpoint, they looked at ways to take care of us, to save us from the horror of poverty and loss brought on when governments fail to do their job protecting the property rights of citizens.

It was a popular slogan in the 1960's, early 1970's that "the personal is political," in considering my own life and the way that unspoken rules have influenced me has been the reverse, discovering that the political is personal.  As I have considered want and my orientation to the term, I have not focused on politics or societal mores, I've looked at my personal response to want, desire, and personal preference.  I hold it to be true that want is a condition which cannot be corrected from without but must be healed from within.

My personal preference is to have a size 3 body.  My desire is to be attractive.  My want is freedom from the pain of arthritis and allergies which plague me.  My lack of this freedom negatively impacts my health and my ability to function "within normal parameters" as Star Trek's Data would put it.

In general my life has been pleasant.  I have never had to wonder if there would be food, clothing, or shelter.  I have had and still have today a wonderful family.  Both my family of origin and my "in-law" family is peopled with caring, supportive, and {generally} respectful individuals who contribute to my need for belonging so easily that I have never suffered the pain of exclusion from the group.  Because of the pleasantness of my life, some people may think that from here on out I'm "talking with my mouth full."  Certainly, when I started focusing on the concept of "want," I had to let go a level of guilt that I should name my desires wants at all. 

I began identifying my wants by looking at areas of my life where pain is either presently throbbing, or has been so constant that numbness has set into my soul.  What areas of my life are protected by pop-up distractions to insulate me from pain?  It didn't take me long to find myself wrestling in the hallway outside the doors to self-realization and self actualization.

Poets, prophets and philosophers have dwelt in this corridor of pain.  William Drummond wrote, "Earth's sweetest joy is but disguised pain."  Thoreau saw a "quiet desparation" in most people's lives.  Existentialists described life as "absurd," a "useless passion", or simply "too much (de trop)."  Albert Schweitzer, who considered himself an optimist, said, "Only at quite rare moments have I felt really glad to be alive.  I could not but feel with a sympathy full of regret all the pain that I saw around me, not only that of men, but of the whole creation."  Buddha said that life, reality is "out of joint, off it's center."  He said that the pivot on which we turn is not smooth, there is a friction which minimizes creativity and maximizes conflict.  The Biblically based religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam hold the doctrine of a fallen world with man in a state of unregenerated need of grace to correct the problem of pain.

The Christian tradition links pain and conflict to sin, humanity's predisposition to place selfish interest above other ethical, logical, communal, or even practical concerns.  Buddhism says our pain comes from a specific self-centered desire for private fulfillment.  Life being One, all that tends to separate one aspect from another must cause suffering to the unit which even unconsciously works against the Law.  So I arrive at the task of separating and understanding what elements of my character, my reasoning, my circumstances, or my community generate pain and conflict in my life then go forward applying the cure.

Wherever I find pain, I am close to identifying a want, a lack.  The want may be a character flaw or a condition of my life.  The identification of the want is my beginning place for filling the hole hiding behind the pain.

I'm reminded of the words of St. Paul, "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling."  The journey along the path to freedom from want is neither easy nor free of danger.  Wisdom from the world of addiction cautions us that pain drives us to self-defeating behavior.  When we have identified and let go of the addiction to alcohol that resulted from our fear of failure, it's easier to slip into an addiction to gambling, shopping, overeating or sex than it is to identify and address our underlying pain. 

Spinoza's dictum that "to understand something is to be delivered from it" may point us in the right direction, but there is more to the process than understanding.  To be free of want, it is not enough to merely understand the distracting pains, it is to find the path that leads to authentic life, appreciation for beauty, childlike delight in the world around us, ethical conviction to live in compassion for my fellow man, transcendence of my cultural conditioning, and dedication to the work that fulfills my potential for creativity.

(Over the past several days, the comments people have left here have revealed their own private struggles, considerations and perspective on this series of "Freedoms."  I would encourage anyone who hasn't done so to check out my comments section because in this cyber-community resides a collective wisdom that surpasses anything I can say in a single blog.  It's worth looking back through those comments if you got there early, you may have missed the one that would really speak to you in your situation.)

Freedom from Fear

In January 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a speech before Congress which he entitled "The Four Freedoms."  Norman Rockwell envisioned four paintings based on the freedoms outlined in that speech.  The completed paintings were sold as prints raising over $130 million for the war effort. 

The unspoken rules of my life destroyed my freedom from fear.  Don't make waves, don't upset anyone, don't say it if it isn't nice, don't overreach.  Actually, as I think of it this last one wasn't an unspoken rule.  From as far back as I can remember one of my Mom's oft quoted aphorisms was "Fly too high, land in a cow pile."  or "If you're quiet people might think you're dumb, why open your mouth and prove them right?"  You might fall and break something, you might embarrass yourself (or worse you might embarrass your family), you might not be liked, you might . . .

I grew up afraid.  Afraid that if people knew who I really was, what I really thought, or what I really felt - I would be rejected.  Freedom from Fear has been a long time coming for me and I'm still not quite there yet.  I'd like to be liked, I think it would be a good thing if I remain unbroken today, and God knows I have no desire to come home with cow poop on my shoes.  So stick to the polite, the paved path, the safe place.  That's been my rule.  In his speech, President Roosevelt said, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."  How different can you get from the unspoken rules of my life which demanded that I hand over my freedom daily.

My safety was purchased with the cold sweat of fear.  Fear kept me thinking about it before I spoke.  Fear made me not just look before leaping, it made me weave a suspension bridge over which you could drive a Peterbilt.  Fear demanded of me that I take the path of least resistance.  But, over the past 15 years or so, I've finally figured out that the path of least resistance doesn't get me to the places I want to go.  I want relationships built on respect, mutual interdependence, and caring.  In my mid-twenties, I looked around and realized that my relationships were a text-book case of co-dependent neurosis.  I needed to be needed.  If you need me, you can't reject me because you need me.  But, the trap was that I had to suppress a lot of who I really was in order to be the person that you needed.  So always, fear was my pillow.  What if I slipped up?  What if I dropped the mask and the whole house came tumbling down.

Roosevelt was right.  Those who would give up essential liberty for safety neither deserve nor do they get either prize.  The liberty is gone, but the safety never appears - it's a congame.  In my personal life, (the one where the temperature is 89 degrees and the humidity is about 200% today) I teeter back and forth between assertiveness and passivity.  But, my determination to live free impels me to push through and past my fear to live honestly and communicate freely.

Since I quoted a poet yesterday, how about if I quote a science fiction author today, "Fear is the mindkiller.  Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.  I will face my fear.  I will permit it to pass over me and through me.  And when it has gone I will turn the inner eye to see it's path.  Where the fear is gone, there will be nothing.  Only I will remain."  Frank Herbert, Dune.

I read this book in the early 1980's and loved it.  I enjoyed it so much that I committed the above passage to memory, except for one line.  I could never remember, "I will turn the inner eye to see it's path."  But, it wasn't until I was able see the path of fear that I realized where the fear came from.  Isn't it interesting that the thing I most feared was that "only I" would remain and that "only I" wouldn't be good enough?

Just like yesterday's freedom of speech, today's freedom from fear is imperfectly realized in my life.  But, having identified the enemy seems to have been a large part of the battle.  When I feel the fear rise in my throat these days, I can laugh.  I ask myself "Who am I trying to impress? . . .  So what if ____ doesn't like you, they aren't paying your internet bill! . . . Sure I'm out on a limb!  That's where the fruits (and nuts) grow." 

Full Text of President Roosevelt's Speech found Here.

Freedom of Speech

Analyzing ideas that are foundational to my life has been an exercise in unearthing the unspoken rules of behavior I grew up with, saying them outloud and hearing the contradictions.  Freedom to speak is a powerful thing.  Poet Muriel Rukeyser writes, "What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?  The world would split open."

I grew up in the 70's (and it was nothing like that television show as I remember it.)  My parents weren't hip, they were southern school teachers.  They weren't  politically active although they did vote.  At home they didn't practice traditional roles so much, my Mom worked and she certainly didn't "obey" my Dad.  But, I saw in their relationship an inequality of speech.  When Daddy spoke, we were expected to stop what we were doing and listen.  When Mom spoke it was with an edge to her voice that said she didn't expect us to listen and she was already halfway from here to mad about it.    

In school, women were to be listened to and respected.  There was a female principle at my first elementary school, and a woman assistant principle at the Junior High.  So it wasn't until I was in high school that the segregation of men in positions of authority was clearly delineated.  Most of the men who became principal had begun as football coaches.  (I never saw an English teacher move into administration, why is that?)  I learned that men who are agressive and "manly" are to be respected, they have authority.  I learned that women are only allowed authority over small children.  As children grow authority over them shifts from women to men.

I like this series of paintings that Norman Rockwell called the Four Freedoms.  One of the things I like so much about Norman Rockwell is that in imaging the idealized American life, he captured many of the unspoken rules as well.  In the painting above we see the young man standing to speak.  The men around him look up and listen with interest and eye contact, signs of respect.  We don't know the content, it almost doesn't matter.  He is free to speak it.  But, do you notice the solitary female figure in the painting?  She's seated behind the older man, and looking in the general direction of the speaker.  She hasn't turned her head in his direction just her eyes, and her mouth is hidden behind the shoulder of the man's suit.  She has no voice.  The men may be very interested in the speaker's ideas, but she isn't sold on them and she has no way to speak her own ideas or objections.

My husband isn't a saint (at least not all the time) and there have been times I've been angry with him.  Most of the issues I've been angriest about have been those times when I thought that he wasn't listening to me.  Free speech isn't about men versus women or Terri versus Tim, it's an issue of human with human.  The unspoken rule I grew up with was that men get to pick and choose when they will listen to women.  If we are to be a society that promotes free speech, we must also promote clear channels.  Any barrier between a voice and the marketplace of ideas must be removed.  You may have noticed that I jumped from marriage to society at large in this free speech thing.  Talking about what happens inside a marriage crosses into intimate (scary) territory, but the applicable truth is the same.  A marriage that follows a pattern in which one partner has more voice than the other is a weaker marriage than one in which both partners contribute their ideas.

Listening doesn't mean agreeing.  Listening doesn't mean giving up any part of who we are.  It means that we attend to the other person's message.  Some ideas offend.  Hateful, rascist, sexist, and obscene speech are all offensive to me, but if I have a commitment to freedom of speech then I must not silence that voice that speaks these ideas.  I may hear the idea and reject it as illogical, unethical, or harmful.  Listeners in a free society have the obligation to consider speech and to evaluate the ideas we hear.  Passive adoption of any and every idea is silly.  Either passive adoption or dismissal without consideration, robs the listener and dehumanizes the speaker.

No matter what gains we think we've made, barriers remain.  Glass ceilings in corporate America prevent women from speaking in economic life.  Political action committees create a screen with their dollars in order to insulate legislators from hearing any ideas but their own.  Anyone can make noise.  For speech to be influential it must be heard and considered.  The more ideas that make it to the table the better the outcome of consideration will be.