The Land of the Free?

Just two minutes ago, I was listening to the song “Wavin’ Flag” by K’naan.  The first line of the song is “When I get older I will be stronger.  
They'll call me freedom, just like a wavin' flag.”  But I started to think, do you gain freedom when you get older, or lose freedom?  Well, there is the obvious, that with certain steps in your life you gain freedom.  At sixteen, I can drive.  That alone opens up so many possibilities, and gives me more independence.  But on the other hand, when you are a little kid, you can get away with much more.  You have the cuteness factor tied in with the well-known statement “she doesn’t know any better”.  The older you get, the more you have to pay for the choices you make and accept the consequences for your actions.  Once you hit eighteen, you are now tried as an adult.  It’s this dichotomy between gaining some freedom and losing some more.

When it comes to freedom, we live in America “the free country”.  But we all know this isn’t true.  Our constitution consists of laws and guidelines for us as a nation to follow, and we must accept the consequences of not following these rules.  We have the freedom, as humans, to make our own decisions, but have to realize they may backfire.  And this fear of the consequences conditions many people to follow these rules.  But by following the laws that someone else makes up, are we really free?  K’naan says later in the song; “So we struggling, fighting to eat
, and we wondering when we'll be free.”  We walk the fine line of having many freedoms, but also having repercussions for ensuing our freedom.  Where is this boundary?  We are stuck wondering when and if we are free.

If you want to sing out, sing out

People always say that music connects the world.  I think this originally meant wordless music because it’s almost a separate language people from all over the world can read, but to be honest, music in of all types ties the world together.  Music can form friendships and build relationships.  It can fill you up with emotions; some even that you didn’t know existed.  Music can convey messages.  It can save lives.  It can create images and ideas.  A person’s taste in music can define who they are as a person.  It can shape who they become or who they want to be.  It can mend, heal, empower.  It is water after an endless drought, it is the ocean’s calm after a storm, it is a feather floating down softly onto the sandy beach.

It is because of this that I have decided to make my blog somewhat of a “musical” blog.  By this I mean many of my posts will relate to songs, whether it be the lyrics, the textures, the style or the artists.  No matter where you are, music is a value to many and has lived and evolved for generations, and will continue to for generations to come.

Some Scars Should Heal

Yesterday was 9/11.  I can't believe it's been nine years already.  I can still picture walking to my second grade classroom and everyone talking about a terrible plane crash, and me and the rest of my classmates found ourselves confused and scared.  I was walking down the hall and saw my mom walking towards me.  When I asked her why she wasn't at work she told me the office was closed because it wasn't safe to be in a tall building in a major city.  As buildings crumbled to the ground, many lives were crumbling as well, being shattered by the news of a lost loved one.  For me, 9/11 was awful and I will never forget that day, but for others, life was changed forever.  Drastically.

David Whiting, for the Orange County Registar, wrote an article called "Scars from 9/11 mean we won't forget".  Towards the end of the article he writes; "With the 10th anniversary of 9/11 one year away, it is time to heal. And, if for no one else's sake but our own, perhaps it's also time to forgive. But I want the scars to remain forever."  By this he is talking about ground zero as a reminder to people of this awful day, but those aren't the only scars that were left by 9/11.  What about the single mother working long shifts to take care of her three children?  What about the man staring at his wife's empty seat every night as he eats dinner alone?  What about the kid who doesn't know what his father looks like or who his father really was?  Should these scars remain forever?  Yes, it will probably always have an impact on these peoples' lives, and they will always feel pain and sadness for his/her loved one.  But is it fair to say that these people need to keep hanging on to these memories, to clutch on to the pain, to thrive on this anger everyday.  Everyone heals at a different rate and a different pace.  Some may never be able to deal with loss, while others may be able to move on and get on with their lives.  I know Whiting meant to be talking about people remembering the awful events and to leave ground zero as a reminder of this, but some live with reminders everyday.  Yes, we should be reminded of this event for it is important to honor the lives lost but some scars must heal over.

Ignorance=Violence?

Earlier this weekend, I attended a funeral.  It was a Catholic funeral and being Jewish I found myself confused by the unfamiliar rituals of this service.  In class this week, we talked about how people lie because they are ignorant and many times people blame ignorance for others anger or violence towards a belief.  I started to think about this during the service.  Since I was confused by these new rituals, I guess I could be categorized as ignorant of a belief different from my own, but I never felt violence or anger towards the difference.  In fact, I found the difference interesting and eye-opening because it was a new experience.

In the past teachers have said that genocides like the holocaust started because of ignorance and close-mindedness but I feel that these are two extremely different traits.  Ignorance is just the fact of not knowing or understanding but how you perceive something based on this ignorance that really where the issue lies.  Close-mindedness is being unwilling to see or deal with a difference because of the irrational fear of the unknown.  This fear of another group can lead to the violence and anger that everyone associates with ignorance.  But if in seeing this foreign religion and embracing the difference, accepting that some parts I may agree and some I may disagree, then it can take an opposite stance, by making the world a more interesting, diverse and enriching place.  I was ignorant to the rituals of this religion, but does that really make me a bad person or a person who hates everything and everyone different from myself?  No, it just makes me human.  Nobody knows everything.  It's the choice of what to do with this opportunity-to learn from it and embrace it, or be afraid of it-that defines who I am and what kind of person I can become.

hello world!