Golnaz

“And if you can find any way out of our culture, then that's a trap too. Just wanting to get out of the trap reinforces the trap.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“I died as mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was human,
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die human,
To soar with angels blessed above.
And when I sacrifice my angel soul
I shall become what no mind ever conceived.
As a human, I will die once more,
Reborn, I will with the angels soar.
And when I let my angel body go,
I shall be more than mortal mind can know.”
― Rumi Jalal ad'Din

“You’re a product of our language”, Brandy says, “and how our laws are and how we believe our God wants us. Every bitty molecule about you has already been thought out by some million people before you” she says. “Anything you can do is boring and old and perfectly okay. You're safe because you're so trapped inside your culture. Anything you can conceive of is fine because you can conceive of it. You can’t imagine any way to escape. There’s no way you can get out […] And if you can find any way out of our culture, then that’s a trap, too. Just wanting to get out of the trap reinforces the trap”.

The books on plastic surgery, the pamphlets and brochures all promised to help me live a more normal, happy life; but less and less, this looked like what I'd want. What I wanted looked more and more like what I'd always been trained to want. What everybody wants.

Give me attention.

Flash.

Give me beauty.

Flash.

Give me peace and happiness, a loving relationship, and a perfect home.

Flash.

Brandy says, "The best way is not to fight it, just go. Don't be trying all the time to fix things. What you run from only stays with you longer. When you fight something, you only make it stronger."

She says, "Don't do what you want." She says, "Do what you don't want. Do what you're trained not to want."

It's the opposite of following your bliss.

Brandy tells me, "Do the things that scare you the most”.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“We are beginning to understand that the world is always being made fresh and never finished; that activism can be the journey rather than the arrival; that's struggle doesn't always have to be confrontational but can take the form of reaching out to find common ground with the many others in our society who are also seeking ways out from alienation, isolation, privatization, and dehumanization by corporate globalization.”
― Grace Lee Boggs, The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century