Thursday, June 30, 2011
Friday, June 24, 2011
A Coming Out Story
If you haven't heard about the stereotypical career of the South Asian, it may be because you are not the stereotypical child of the stereotypical South Asian immigrant parents who believe the only way for a South Asian to be successful in America is to fit quietly into the stereotypes of the South Asian doctor, professor, or engineer. Or, as my father explains, any career that is so highly skilled that they have no choice but to hire you.
Though none of this was explained to me, my parents frowned on their straight-A child's childhood dream to become a teacher. If you're smart enough, you go to medical school. And if you don't go to medical school, you aren't smart enough.
In my first semester of college, I realized I was far more interested in social justice than I was in medicine. In fact, through personal experience, I decided the honor of the medical field has been severely crippled by pharmaceutical companies and other forays indulging in capitalism and vowed I would never make a three figure salary off a nation struggling for health care access.
When I revealed to my parents that I'd found my calling, they quickly informed me that politicians are corrupt and my interests would lead me down a shameful road ending nowhere better than where I started. Disheartened, by not only the naivete they perceived me to possess, I did not dare mention that my increasing awareness of myself as a post-9/11 Muslim American woman was only a shaky first step. Where I sought support and advice, I was met with devastated expectations, adamant rejection, and confused anger.
Instead, I dropped out and took a semester off to gather my courage. When I returned to college, my first semester English class-- Global Lit, redirected me to my knack for cultural analysis and my love for literature. My teachers in high school tried in vain to foster those things in me but I had dutifully pursued science instead. This time I decided to follow my instincts.
In the meantime, my father became more and more frustrated with the lack of career direction in my choice of major. As it becomes more and more clear to me what I want to do, I am realizing I knew all along but was afraid to claim that knowledge of myself in fear of disappointing my parents. I wandered semi-aimlessly in a place I didn't quite belong. I started to believe that what they'd said was true, that my failure to pursue medicine meant I wasn't smart enough or strong enough to succeed--that I would never make them happy. Unfortunately, my belief in myself maintained its sway in my shaping. A negativity crept into me, buried itself there and has grown and seeped into parts of me I once believed to be infallible.
Again, this blog is a quest to adhere to the best of my beliefs. Here is another: Do NOT accept negativity. Reject it as harshly as it would reject you. Though this may stand in contradiction with my previous post, I do not believe it is entirely a matter of having the right to define yourself. It is more a matter of being good to yourself when you decide what defines you.
Though none of this was explained to me, my parents frowned on their straight-A child's childhood dream to become a teacher. If you're smart enough, you go to medical school. And if you don't go to medical school, you aren't smart enough.
In my first semester of college, I realized I was far more interested in social justice than I was in medicine. In fact, through personal experience, I decided the honor of the medical field has been severely crippled by pharmaceutical companies and other forays indulging in capitalism and vowed I would never make a three figure salary off a nation struggling for health care access.
When I revealed to my parents that I'd found my calling, they quickly informed me that politicians are corrupt and my interests would lead me down a shameful road ending nowhere better than where I started. Disheartened, by not only the naivete they perceived me to possess, I did not dare mention that my increasing awareness of myself as a post-9/11 Muslim American woman was only a shaky first step. Where I sought support and advice, I was met with devastated expectations, adamant rejection, and confused anger.
Instead, I dropped out and took a semester off to gather my courage. When I returned to college, my first semester English class-- Global Lit, redirected me to my knack for cultural analysis and my love for literature. My teachers in high school tried in vain to foster those things in me but I had dutifully pursued science instead. This time I decided to follow my instincts.
In the meantime, my father became more and more frustrated with the lack of career direction in my choice of major. As it becomes more and more clear to me what I want to do, I am realizing I knew all along but was afraid to claim that knowledge of myself in fear of disappointing my parents. I wandered semi-aimlessly in a place I didn't quite belong. I started to believe that what they'd said was true, that my failure to pursue medicine meant I wasn't smart enough or strong enough to succeed--that I would never make them happy. Unfortunately, my belief in myself maintained its sway in my shaping. A negativity crept into me, buried itself there and has grown and seeped into parts of me I once believed to be infallible.
Again, this blog is a quest to adhere to the best of my beliefs. Here is another: Do NOT accept negativity. Reject it as harshly as it would reject you. Though this may stand in contradiction with my previous post, I do not believe it is entirely a matter of having the right to define yourself. It is more a matter of being good to yourself when you decide what defines you.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Curation and Cultivation
Since finishing college, maybe even since I began living away from my family, I have begun to realize that the way most people define themselves is in relation to a given set of rules. Some people follow rules provided to them and identify themselves as followers of those rules. Some people defy rules that are provided to them and consider themselves to be rebels, often also identifying themselves with the reasons that they need not follow those rules. A lot of times, people hop between different sets of rules, looking for a set they like. Even more often, people take their given set of rules and modify them to suite their lifestyle.
However, because people use rules as a basis for their identities, they tend to take it personally when others defy, reject, modify, or even follow the same rules as they do. To take a lesson from Huck Finn, rules also have an intimate relationship with morality and justice. On top of which righteousness often involves choosing between following rules that can mean saving yourself and sacrificing others or saving others and sacrificing yourself where "self" is interchangeable with rules and identity and mired in the realm of choice.
Even the way we learn and know can be boiled down to understanding, accepting, and following rules.
Since I was a kid, I have always had a problem with rules. They are what I consider to be a narrow minded way of being. As a daughter of immigrant parents, it often seemed to me that neither my school nor my parents, the two institutions under which I had to operate quite knew what rules really made sense to enforce upon me. My mother thought this was because my grandfather had spoiled me as a child and lead me to believe I was too good for rules, which is probably partially true.
From a young age, I have been choosing when I wanted to follow whatever rules suited my interests. I kept my enemy close when it came to school, by getting such spectacular grades that the teachers just assumed I was a stickler for the rules and neglected to enforce them for me, eventually deeming me an exception-- which I was. Unfortunately, my mother saw me for what I was and defying her over-protective rules required covert operations.
For me, defying rules has never been action based in carelessness or recklessness. In a true mastery of defiance, getting caught should be an act of defiance itself. Or is it an act of identity, identifying the perpetrator simply as a rebel? But I am not happy with being someone who is just "against" some other thing. I crave to learn, not destroy.
As someone who has never followed rules indiscriminately, I struggled in college-- navigating disciplines and bureaucracies. And even more so, I struggled with the freedom to choose and make my own life, freedom I have only gained from leaving my parents' home and from finishing school with zero job prospects. However, I refused to follow any beaten trail guaranteeing success.
Obviously, I have no choice but to make my own rules-- rules I will myself to follow in a lifelong test of my own capacity for learning, adapting, and perhaps teaching others to do the same. I seek not only to know but understand knowing and to pass on that understanding and pass on my refusal to tailor myself to any principles but my own. This is what I do best. Having nothing else to base my principles on, I will have to base them on the curation and cultivation of my interests. Having no platform for the performance of my self-discipline, I begin this blog as a promise to myself and will continue it until my private performance is either satisfactory or preferred.
However, because people use rules as a basis for their identities, they tend to take it personally when others defy, reject, modify, or even follow the same rules as they do. To take a lesson from Huck Finn, rules also have an intimate relationship with morality and justice. On top of which righteousness often involves choosing between following rules that can mean saving yourself and sacrificing others or saving others and sacrificing yourself where "self" is interchangeable with rules and identity and mired in the realm of choice.
Even the way we learn and know can be boiled down to understanding, accepting, and following rules.
Since I was a kid, I have always had a problem with rules. They are what I consider to be a narrow minded way of being. As a daughter of immigrant parents, it often seemed to me that neither my school nor my parents, the two institutions under which I had to operate quite knew what rules really made sense to enforce upon me. My mother thought this was because my grandfather had spoiled me as a child and lead me to believe I was too good for rules, which is probably partially true.
From a young age, I have been choosing when I wanted to follow whatever rules suited my interests. I kept my enemy close when it came to school, by getting such spectacular grades that the teachers just assumed I was a stickler for the rules and neglected to enforce them for me, eventually deeming me an exception-- which I was. Unfortunately, my mother saw me for what I was and defying her over-protective rules required covert operations.
For me, defying rules has never been action based in carelessness or recklessness. In a true mastery of defiance, getting caught should be an act of defiance itself. Or is it an act of identity, identifying the perpetrator simply as a rebel? But I am not happy with being someone who is just "against" some other thing. I crave to learn, not destroy.
As someone who has never followed rules indiscriminately, I struggled in college-- navigating disciplines and bureaucracies. And even more so, I struggled with the freedom to choose and make my own life, freedom I have only gained from leaving my parents' home and from finishing school with zero job prospects. However, I refused to follow any beaten trail guaranteeing success.
Obviously, I have no choice but to make my own rules-- rules I will myself to follow in a lifelong test of my own capacity for learning, adapting, and perhaps teaching others to do the same. I seek not only to know but understand knowing and to pass on that understanding and pass on my refusal to tailor myself to any principles but my own. This is what I do best. Having nothing else to base my principles on, I will have to base them on the curation and cultivation of my interests. Having no platform for the performance of my self-discipline, I begin this blog as a promise to myself and will continue it until my private performance is either satisfactory or preferred.
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