Prejudice Reflecting on the Power

Prejudice Reflecting on the Power Point and the discussions, I cannot help but feel depressed -- it seems that everyone is just so lost, or looking for something -- an identity, happiness, a way, a place, contentment. Everyone has his or her own story -- and some articulate it; some tell it of their own accord; some tell it out of compulsion.

Some are prompted, some are forthcoming naturally -- but why is there a common thread through all of the stories? -- regardless of race, ethnicity, background, place, age, sex? Why does everyone strike me as sad, lost, longing for something -- pretending, attempting, trying to be content with what they have… Trying to be whole I do not know really what they have -- what any of them have…if anything. Maybe some are blessed. Maybe some miss this blessing.

(How some obtain it and others miss it, I do not know.) Even in conversation, in heart-to-hearts, you only learn so much. Yes, people reveal themselves when they speak of themselves -- and sometimes they reveal more than they really know… You can speak of yourself and try to identify yourself -- but sometimes the things you don't say, the things you don't express say more about you than the things you do say… Why does Dr.

Claudia talk so much about her past, about the places she has seen and traveled? I know a girl like this -- she is always quick to tell everyone which cities she has seen and how much she knows about them -- as if she were making up for something else lacking in her -- or as if she really wants to sound as though she were an expert… It is sad to hear her talk so much. Dr. Claudia sounds sad.

It was sad to hear her say that she moved so far away to live in Formentera (she tries to cover it by making a joke -- "Hey, it was the 60s!" -- but she doesn't cover it with me; I can't help feeling pained by that).

It is sad to think of her looking for something, doing all that wandering all that time, attempting to learn different languages, to fit in, to understand other cultures, other people, herself… Why is understanding so hard? Why do we know so little -- not only of others but of our own selves? Dr.

Claudia tried to cover so much in what she said, trying to show us or others that she did things for a reason -- because she wasn't happy here, or she was bored there, but now she's happy… Why? Is she happy? I don't know, she says she is… She has a son now, a husband, grand children -- that is good… But even all of that -- it will go And the others: Zhaohua Gao.

I did not even know he was a guy until the end and he spoke of his wife. I pictured him as a girl the whole time -- and I thought, oh, she's so sad. My opinion did not change when he finally identified himself as a man, but it altered or shifted somehow.

I felt sad but in a different way -- I don't know how -- like I wanted to comfort him, and if she had been a girl I do not know how I would have comforted her. There is something so strange about us all. The Power Point, for example -- all those different pictures -- so strange and wild and common.

My reaction to them all was the same: What? I could not understand what I was looking at -- whether it was a picture of two Middle Eastern friends smiling on a couch or a picture of two women kissing. I did not understand any of it. People from different places, showing me the tiniest aspect of themselves -- a moment, a glimpse, a shadow of personality, of soul.

What am I to do with that? What is there for me to say? The same is true for the fill-in-the-blank exercises. That so-and-so man is so hot. That so-and-so woman is so fat. I could not make sense of it. What were the words to be used to fill-in-the-blanks? White, Black, Armenian, Latino, Chinese -- what are these? I could not understand.

My reflection is this: none of these things are important: these images, these names, these places, these events -- all that is real is this sadness that hangs over it all -- even in the smiling pictures, in the kissing moments, in the insistences of peace, in the denials of wanting to fly, in the sorrows of loss, in the fulfillment of desire -- every picture, every glimpse, every shadow of every soul seems to be suffering from the same exact thing…separation.

Why do we all seem so separated from something…from each other…from some heavenly delight…some beautiful unattainable something that we never can quite catch or identify or know that we are even looking for I don't even want to think about something as silly as prejudice. Even if I think of everyone as all being the same, as all being a part of this same suffering, this same longing…I know I don't know how to talk to people.

What can I say to them? How can I speak to them? Or say who I am, or what I am, and where I am going, or what I want -- why should I say any of that? I would feel ridiculous, this way I feel now. I do not feel equal to them -- these people in these pictures, or these people who share their stories. I do not feel part of their experience, even if they share it with me.

I hardly want to share my own (even if part of me does -- it does not know how). I think that is something I could say about myself -- that I do not even know my own attitude, or how or why to change it or what to do with it. I want to learn, I want to understand… But I feel inadequate to the task.

People have so much, and it is like trying to put it all into a tiny vessel… Who can hold it? If there was a way, or a reason, or a guide -- that would be one thing… An approach to life -- this life that leads in so many different directions for so many people and yet always reads the same way -- and ends the same way…with some longing.

Is there a Heaven? Is there a God? Someone to confide in? Someone to pray to? Someone to watch over all of us? Someone to help us get along? Someone to teach us patience, charity, love, forgiveness, mercy, justice? Someone to strengthen us? Someone to show us what is right and.