Capstone to a High School Career: Filling in the Blank Pages

"You Rock!  Have a great summer!" 
"You are so fun to be around!"
"I'm so glad I got to know you!"


These are quotes in my yearbook from my junior year of high school.  Why my junior year, you ask?  Well, I'll tell you. 


When I was a sophomore, I was the only kid whose mom forgot to order a yearbook.  Didn't even know until the last day of school.  Went to pick up my yearbook and was told nobody paid for one.  So, I wandered around the school halls empty handed, watching everyone else excitedly sharing sonnets and penning poetry in each other's end-of-year keepsakes.


Eventually, my drama teacher, Andra Thorne, noticed my lack of participation.  I explained the mishap to her.  She pulled a couple pieces of copy paper from the printer and stapled them together.  On the front she wrote, "Nick Siler's Cool Yearbook :-)"  It was a wonderful act of sentiment.  But a bit too late in the game.  Yearbook signing was pretty much over by that point.  Still, I'm grateful to her.  It was much easier feeding those few blank pages down the paper shredder than it was fitting an entire glossy yearbook.*


My senior year was a different story.  Everything during my senior year felt the need to be momentous.  A farewell "it's been nice knowing you" passage just wouldn't suffice.  It wouldn't accurately fulfill how wonderful my year with these people had been.  And, I am a slave to accuracy.  So, rather than showing up with a pen and winging it the morning of...I spent HOURS typing and addressing individual letters to each person. 


I was still finishing the letters the morning of the last day of school.  And, it took me longer than expected (slave to accuracy).  So, I didn't end up making it to school until 11:00 o'clock.  On the last day of school students vacate the premises as soon as possible.  The halls are mostly desolate by 11:00.  By the time I arrived to deliver my letters, most of the recipients were already gone.  My summer vacation kicked off by looking up addresses in the phone book and mailing out the unclaimed letters. 


"Hey Nick!  Math was the greatest!  Have a great summer!  I'll see you around!" (thanks, Natalie McGuire)


This is what normal people write in yearbooks.  Me--the enigma that I am--I type full page, single-spaced, self-addressed letters.  Aye, yai, yai (shakes head at himself).  What a rare character I am. 


Needless to say, my senior yearbook ended up rather barren as well.


So, that's what I have.  My 11th Grade "So Glad You Were in My Seminary Class!" Yearbook (thanks, Anna Packer).  Which is fine with me.  It's the best of both worlds anyway.  I have all my year-older and year-younger favorites together.  Plus (if I'm being completely honest), I don't really care.  I don't look to the books for guidance now, nor have they shaped me into the person I've become.  So, I think I'd be just fine without them. 


It's interesting, isn't it, how epochal things can seem at the time?  Sometimes, in retrospect, your biggest moments become your biggest questions: why did I spend so much energy; why did I care so much?  Time is the undefeated distancing champion.  And, with distance, comes perspective.  And, with perspective, comes greater knowledge.

Perhaps recognizing this IS the culmination of my high school education…  Maybe high school was all just a set up for me to look back one day and realize sometimes things that seem like a really big deal…in reality…are not.  Perhaps it wasn’t about fractions and decent comma placement.  Maybe those 180 days a year (yes, I even went to school on make-up snow days) were all leading up to this one, all-important life-lesson that I had to Dumbledore on my own!  Perhaps this essay is my final paper, my thesis, my final exam, and today…I passed!  July 10^th, 2014—I, Nicholas Siler, have finally graduated high school!

IT'S WATER!!  Did you hear me, Annie Sullivan?  It has a name!  And, it's name is WATER.


Wouldn't you know it?  I finally graduated high school and there still isn't anyone around to sign my yearbook.  Some things never change ;-)


Epilogue


3 things that struck me going back through the yearbook


1. How many names I don't even recognize.
2. How many people thought we were going to stay in touch.
3. How many girls left me their phone number.  (yeehaw)


Also, Jocelyn Stayner Gibbons (BYU grad and mother of 3), who graduated in the top 5% of our class, left me with this legacy I now pass on to you.


"PEOPLE HAVE THE RIGHT TO WALK AROUND BUTT NAKED"


Words to live by, Jocelyn.  Words to live by.


*This was a joke.  I didn't really shred my yearbook, homemade or otherwise.

The Race to Erase Racism: Witch Hunting in the 21st Century

I have been reading a book lately that indirectly involves discrimination in the subplot.  Two boys are prejudged to be idiotic and simple-minded when they leave their homes upriver and travel to a tavern in the next closest town. They are scoffed at for their ragged clothes and funny accents.  Their clothes change, their accents adapt, they continually prove themselves to be wiser than any other character, and yet, they continue to battle new and differing preconceived notions no matter where they travel.  It’s a harsh introduction to a totem pole society they’ve never known before; no such hierarchy existed in their village.

They speak of the beautiful, isolated naiveté of their home.  Before venturing out, they thought their clothes were nice.  They didn’t know anyone who wore nicer.  They were completely unaware their clothes were rags until they were labeled as such by others.  Their tongue is the common vernacular of their environment.  They’d never known other before.  And it certainly never sounded funny or out of place until they traveled out to a place where their words were laughed at.  When taverners called their reckless behavior foolish they tried to explain there was no need for protection or secrets back home.  It would be an easy task to tell whose resources had suddenly increased should someone in the village take to stealing.  Rather, supplies were more communal: those who had a little more remembering times they had had a little less and had been helped by those who had a little more.

It reminded me of when I was young enough to be colorblind.  Before I’d learned of slavery and civil rights, holocausts, revolutions, liberations, and nine-elevens.  Though I learned of them in respectable ways, reverenced with woe and forbearing repetition, I nevertheless can deny they didn’t implant the discernment of ‘different’ notwithstanding.  Yes, I learned to respect and appreciate differences from these historical lessons, but an inescapable byproduct of equality lessons is learning that inequality existed in the first place.  I’m pleased with an accepting mind.  But, sometimes I still yearn for the childish purity of not recognizing differences at all.  However, since differences do exist and can no longer be denied, it is best to glean from them what we can.  A profound lesson I learned from watching a Where Are They Now recap episode of "Wipe Swap" last night.  LOL!

One of my pet peeves is the way “racist” and “bigot” have replaced “witch” in the finger-pointing hunt for modern-day scapegoats.  I often cringe when I hear these words pop up in articles and media headlines because I find the situations so blown out of proportion and the labels so misplaced.

Without getting into too much psychological mumbo jumbo, human beings organize, assemble, and classify information according to the availability heuristic, i.e., what’s available to us.  What is available to us?  Previous information that we’ve already encountered and categorized. 

We process new information based on old information.  We lump like things together.  When we see a four-legged creature with spots and a long neck, we expect it to be a giraffe.  Why?  Because in our brains, these are the qualities that delineate 'giraffe' from other animals.  We anticipate dogs barking and wagging their tail because all other dogs we’ve met have barked and wagged their tails.  And so on, and so on. 

The availability heuristic is a shortcut: giving first-time attention to every scrap of matter we encounter would be debilitating.  The heuristic allows us to process information quickly so we can move on.  This way we can walk down the trail without having to scrutinize each rock along the way. 

Remember how the School House Rock pronouns video demonstrated the useful timeliness of not having to repeat Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla over and over?  Or how Yelp takes information previously input (comments, reviews, ratings), organizes them, processes them, and then presents them to you in one easy search result so you don’t have to spend all night driving around to different restaurants?  Your brain kind of works the same way. 

Just as you put keywords into a search bar, your senses (see, hear, smell, taste, touch) send key information to your brain and your brain replies with the top results.  For example: Ears to the brain—I’m hearing a loud, rushing, whooshing sound coming from overhead.  Brain computes—there must be a plane flying over you in the sky.  Brain to eyes—check if there is a plane flying overhead in the sky.  Eyes to brain—yes, we see a plane flying overhead in the sky.  Brain confirmed, mind at ease.  Unless it’s something really bizarre we’ve never encountered in all our years of sensory collection, these computations are so habitual they happen instantaneously and unconsciously.

Key sights (four-legged), key sounds (barking noise), key touches (hairy or furry)—any key information your senses provide to your brain are processed instantaneously and unconsciously (it’s a dog) because they are homespun from common consistencies (dogs are commonly four-legged, hairy, barking creatures).  And, common consistencies translate to people as easy as anything else. 

I’m originally from Utah.  When people learn I’m from Utah the first question they ask is, “Are you Mormon?”  This is a prejudiced question.  It’s prejudging based on what people know of Utah.  It doesn’t bother me.  I smile and answer.  This doesn’t cause headlines or social media outpour because the prejudice is based on fact.  It’s prejudiced, but logical.  Utah has a higher Mormon population than anywhere else in the world.  Therefore, being from Utah, there is a high probability I myself am Mormon. 

People are aware not EVERYONE from Utah will automatically be Mormon.  They are open to the possibility I may say no.  But, they’re also not senseless enough to ignore a correlation.  And, why should they?  Why deny it?  A correlation is a correlation.  It’s there.  It exists.  It exists for a reason: because there is a common consistency.  And, this common consistency helps us group, categorize, and process information.

Today, the sun is shining.  It’s in the habit of rising.  In fact, there is a strong correlation between morning and the sun rising.  It rose yesterday and the day before too. 

When I stop and think about it, I know it will not last forever.  A day will come when the morning arrives and the sun has not risen.  Every night I lay my head down I know there is potential the sun will not come up again.  However, there has never been a day in my life when the sun has failed to rise.  Therefore, I expect the sun to rise again tomorrow.  Because it has risen every day thus far.  I anticipate it despite knowing the potential for a different outcome.  This makes the sun consistent and reliable, it doesn’t make me a sunist.

In the medical world they have a saying: When you hear hoof beats, think of horses, not zebras.  There are reliable reasons stereotypes exist. 

The fact of the matter is lower socioeconomic environments are more likely to have higher drug abuse and crime rates.  I have lived paycheck to paycheck.  I’ve been poor.  I have lived in government housing.  And I know that most of the lower class is good people just trying to get by; put food on the table; make it to another day.  That still doesn’t change statistics. 

“[The poor] suffer higher disease rates, death rates and imprisonment than their affluent brethren. They are imprisoned at much higher rates and they are executed for capital crimes more often than any other group.”--http://www.pubdef.ocgov.com/poverty.htm

Additionally, certain races and ethnicities are more likely to reside in these environments. 

“SES [socioeconomic status] and race and ethnicity are intimately intertwined. Research has shown that race and ethnicity in terms of stratification often determine a person’s socioeconomic status (House & Williams, 2000)…African American children are three times more likely to live in poverty than Caucasian children. American Indian/Alaska Native, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, and Native Hawaiian families are more likely than Caucasian and Asian families to live in poverty (Costello, Keeler, & Angold, 2001; National Center for Education Statistics, 2007).”

When it comes to the workforce, women too make their own bed, so to speak.  Highly educated or not, women are more likely to favor children over jobs. 

“There is little difference in labor market activity by college selectivity among women without children and women who are not married. But the presence of children is associated with far lower labor market activity among married elite graduates. Most women eventually marry and have children, and the net effect is that labor market activity is on average lower…”-- http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2013/04/17/Why-Women-Are-Leaving-the-Workforce-in-Record-Numbers

Just as my fellow Utahns and I are more likely to be Mormon, those from poverty stricken areas are more likely to be involved in crime  Minorities are more likely to be from poverty stricken areas.  Women are more likely leave a job.  These are just a few examples of a list that goes on and on, but they are not racial judgments; they’re statistics.  Of course they’re not all encompassing.  Of course they don’t apply to everyone.  But, they do make particular behaviors warranted. 

Should a person bypass a hitchhiker, it doesn’t necessarily make them bigoted; it makes them educated in self-preservation.  A boss wary of handing over a job to a woman may also be schooled in self-preservation.  Business owners have to do what makes the most sense to ensure the business keeps going.  Sometimes a less qualified man actually becomes more qualified simply because he is more likely to stay with the company, which in the long-term outlook is more beneficial.  Are these conundrums of life unfair?  Yes.  Irritating enough to pull hair out?  Yes.  But, are they racist?  Not necessarily.

In order to show true racism a level of unity and equality must first exist.  Imagine putting two identical cups filled with identical clear-looking liquids in front of lemon-lime soda enthusiasts who on a previous questionnaire all disclosed their favorite soda is Sprite.  One cup is labeled Sprite while the other is labeled 7-Up, yet BOTH CUPS contain 7-Up.  The subjects are instructed to sample both sodas and choose which they think tastes best. 

Even though both cups contain the SAME liquid, and NEITHER cup contains Sprite, undoubtedly these enthusiasts will be likely to say the liquid in the cup labeled Sprite tastes better.  This is an example of a truly biased superiority.  Believing Sprite tastes better based purely on name alone.  Unfortunately, creating a similarly empirical environment to assess racism in people is not only difficult, it’s arguably impossible.

How can you obtain equalization between two things that are innately different?  No matter how equally they measure up on paper, women will always have something different than a man.  Despite being the same age, growing up in the same neighborhood, having the same accent or lack thereof, attending all the same schools, taking all the same classes, earning all the same grades, being clean-cut, well-groomed gentlemen in business suits, an African-American male and a Caucasian male will always have one inalterable difference.  The catch-22 is that without the difference racism would have no boundary, and therefore, cease to exist, and with the difference there is no way to accurately assess presence of racism without causation possibly being attributed to extraneous variables.

Suppose a boss interviews the two men mentioned who share all the same credentials but differ in skin color and the boss hires the Caucasian male.  Ultimately, the boss chose the candidate he was most comfortable with.  It’s possible he believes one race to be superior to another.  Maybe he was raised in a predominantly Caucasian area and unconsciously sides with familiarity.  This would make sense.  Tastes in food, entertainment, etc., are all heavily influenced by the nostalgia of childhood.  But--especially in this day and age--it really could come down to a host of other possibilities: an extra smile, an eyebrow raise, maybe the tone of voice, or the speed at which one talks.  There are hundreds of reasons why one was possibly selected over the other. 

Thus, finger pointing and labeling based on one isolated incident is an unwarranted jump to conclusions.  Repetition is needed to establish a common stream of behavior and intent.  When people in heated moments become red-faced, desperate, or fed up they often lash out with one-time words they would not otherwise say.  This doesn't mean they believe it.  Were these words consistently repeated over time and situations, root behavior could be established and labeled.  However, generally people who are upset don't mean what they say and will own up to such once they calm down.  Repetition and intent must be taken into account. 

Knives are the second most common murder weapon in the United States.  Everyday knives are used for heinous purposes.  And yet, knives continue to be used everyday in every kitchen across the country.  What's the difference?  Intent.  

Knives may be a common killing tool, but the majority of this country is actually using knives to butter bread.  Like knives, words have the power to destroy lives.  But, at the end of the day, words are just words.  It is the way in which we use words that matters.  Not every taboo word that slips out is meant to be a swipe at the neck.  As mindless as chopping lettuce, it is possible for such words to surface without malice.

Because it is the intent behind words that matters, it's fairly ridiculous we have outlawed words in the first place.  It's a blind hope that eliminating the word will somehow also eliminate the malicious intent behind it.  But, plucking a leaf off a tree has never succeeded in killing the branch, let alone squashing the trunk.  Meanwhile, we've become so pavlovian trained to hear sirens anytime particular buzz words are used that we've stopped caring who is the real enemy and who is not and have simply started condemning everyone.  This doesn't seem particularly healthy.  

I am aware that racism continues to be a very real and prevalent threat.  However, most often this is not what I’m seeing in the media.  What I see in national coverage is a grain of sand sensationalized into a mountain.  This is why I'm less concerned with what Paula Deen may or may not have said in her kitchen at one point, and more concerned that neighbors having an Easter-egg hunt in Richmond, Virginia found supremacist-planted eggs with notes saying “’Diversity’=White Genocide” and links to “Whitemanmarch.com.”  Censoring the words does not censor the ideology.  The ideology is what I’d like to see expelled.  Not the livelihood of media-selected scapegoats.

Interior Design: Subletting Go and Sprucing the Soul

I’ve always longed to be taller and more narrow. 

 

When we are born we inhabit our body's blueprint much the same as the four-walled structure of a house or office.

 

Like the walls of a room, there are things about my body I can change.  I can fluctuate my weight, I can part my hair differently, I can tan my skin.  But, there is a much longer and concrete list of things I will never be able to change.  Height, for starters. 

 

One of the most important factors in determining a person’s happiness is having a grasp on what is in your control and what is out of it.  A person continually fighting against that which is inalterable will not be happy and will regret such time spent.  Likewise, a person stagnant and unprogressive will be similarly discontent.

 

One of the last classes I took before graduating was biopsychology.  I had an enthusiastic professor who had an extraordinary gift to explain brain functions simply and sensibly.  Day one of our class she testified to the power of the brain.  She spent the rest of the semester proving her words accurate.

 

As a psychologist and an observer, I too cannot deny the power of the brain.  It is astounding what it can do, incredible what it can believe, and phenomenal how differently it can perceive.  When desperate or willful enough, our brain can actually create what we want to see as clearly as a lake miraging in the desert.  Even so--just as I cannot make myself taller--our brain also has its limits.  Eventually, the lake will turn back into a pumpkin.

 

Did you know we are born with an emotional skeleton just as intractable as our physical bones?  A frame from which feelings must hang and a structure beyond which they cannot extend?

   

All too often I see people examining the walls they inhabit, embarrassed and vulnerable to have them bare.  So, they pick up a roller and paint the wall blue.  Two, three coats of paint, if necessary.   

 

“See my wall?” They say.  “It’s blue.”

 

The rest of us are not convinced.  “No,” we conclude.  “Your PAINT is blue.  The wall, however, is only being masked by blue paint.”

 

“The wall is BLUE!” they defend.  “I’ve determined a blue wall is what I want.  It is necessary.  Blue wall is ultimately what I need to be happy.  I have made the wall blue.  The wall will stay blue.”

 

And, sensing how important it is for this wall to be blue, we treat these people as though their wall is blue.  “Hey!  How’s that blue wall?” we say.  And “Good for you for making that wall blue!” we encourage.

                   

Some people even believe it.  “His wall really is blue,” they say.  “He told me so.”  And “I’ve seen it.  In person.  His wall really is blue.”  Another testament to what the power of the brain can see.

 

But, ultimately, the wall has been painted.  Masked.  Coated.  Eventually, there will be a chip.  A crack.  An impression.  Gluey ideas, gummy experiences, and indelible people will stick to the wall and peel strips away when they leave.  And there these marks will stay like scars, shaming the painter.  Until he realizes no one left seems to mind the parts of the bare wall peeking through.  In fact, he doesn’t mind them so much himself.  Those are the parts that make him...him!  The blue may be pretty, but it has been covering his very essence.  And away he’ll rip the paint in large, hurling pieces, relishing in new-found freedom, his wall, at last, finally able to breathe…and be. 

 

I guess I've seen too many fish gasping to be birds to conclude anything other than fish are meant to be fish.

 

Accepting that which cannot change is the greatest service a man can do for himself.  Striving to improve the rest is the greatest building block a man can erect on that foundation.  Figuring out which is which is easier than most make it.