Notes on Glocalism

by B.J. on 5/23/2008 09:02:00 PM 0 comments Print this post

I was just websurfing on a Friday night. Happened upon a newly wedded old Muslim friend's xanga site. Then happened upon her friend's site. This friend of a friend directed a PCN, a Pilipino Cultural Night, that I had watched at SD and even let me crash at her place for the night.

She posted something interesting about consumerism that I had been wanting to post, but I never really quite put it all together. I've wanted to talk even more about the consumer culture we live in, and explain how I try and live outside of it as much as possible. These notes she wrote about are a good springboard for me.

Here's an excerpt from her post

GLOCAL notes
Glocal 11.9.2006
Consumerism

What is the good life?

This is what caught my eye...particularly because Dom wrote that on my shirt, and the song by Kanye is on heavy repeat.

""American Dream": ownership, family first, white picket fence,
"2.5 kids," inward focused life = protective, exclusion, money for
vacations, social status, financial stability, disposable income,
productivity, time equals money, focus on what you have, shopping as
recreation, if you want something you should have it, more cars than
drivers, having the latest of everything, kids are involved in
everything and attend private/prestigious schools"


Redefinition: perhaps involving redefining what is "best," outward
focused = good life for everyone (redistributing) considering all of
humanity, living sustainably, rich relationships (spend time, not
money), cultivate talents, stronger connection to the earth, peace of
mind/contentment, self-reflection/awareness,
community involvement,
balance of work, play, health, conscious consuming, quality time,
shared resources, freedom to pursue dreams/passions, access to nature,
freedom from financial fears, quality food with friends, time for
creativity, value shift out from under the burden of productivity,
slowing down, living by the rhythms of life and the cycles of the
seasons

Where do you get caught up?
· Self-comparison
· When you are at the end of your rope and need a quick fix/act of
desperation

I guess this is fine cause we all fall, but not too much.

· Community reinforcement
· Traditions, gifts, souvenirs
· Convenience
· Laziness
· Wastefulness
· Unconscious consuming
· Societal expectations
· Have to "own" otherwise your not fiscally responsible/successful

This is something I've just discovered: you don't have to own something to utilize it. I "own" lots of books, but what it's ultimately useless if those books and knowledge don't even end up being circulated in my consciousness and used by me.

· Earning more money to keep up same lifestyle


The old saying about teaching a man to fish. I'm sick of paying people to do things for me. To cut up, fry, and cook my food.

It makes me think what the hell I've really learned in 24 years. All I've learned is how to pay for things, that I'm really too dependent on others, that I'm blessed, and damn, I need to do something.

· Over-commitments/ energy spread too thin
· Impulse buys

How do you break the cycle?
· Setting boundaries:
· Budget/limit

When you're breaking any cycle, it's important at first to set boundaries and reach goals, just to give you a bit of confidence that you can get through something. Then once you meet those goals, just slowly cut back and cut down.

For instance, Facebook and I. I made a goal to not be in it for a year. I really wanted to stop wishing, hoping, and clinging on to these fantasy people that I barely even knew. I needed to stop stalking. Goddamn it was pathetic.

I didn't reach the 1-year goal as I've joined back, but given that I initially set hard boundaries and have made it less a part of my life, it's become exactly just that: less a part of my life. I've discovered that there are a lot more interesting things outside of that reality...

· Creative ways of giving out gifts
· Breaking traditions or redefining
· Small steps/changes
· Pulling people alongside with similar values
· Being a voice to others
· Curbing Media Intake!

Speaking of reality...

Reality is what you take into your world. And if all you take in is crap, your reality is crap.

· Spread awareness
· Sharing: possessions, housing
· Intentional community
· Become an educated consumer
· When you do something you love, you feel full and need less
· Periodically do an internal values check to make sure your actions
are line with values
· Move somewhere simpler/slower
· List where your time is going to see what your priorities are
· Cut out things that are unnecessary
· Intentionally decrease your means so that you are forced to be more
intentional with what you spend (make a financial commitment, start
saving, work less)

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by B.J. on 2/28/2004 12:28:00 PM 0 comments Print this post

Passion of The Christ: You Can Spell Myth with All of Jesus' Wounds

Nope, I'm not gonna do it. Not going to hate on it just because it was a religion movie, and then proceed to slam religion like Randy Savage on Hector "Macho" Camacho. Pero, I'm also not going to hate on it because I also actually didn't hate it, probably because I watched looking at how Mel Gibson would portray this as a reality. And along this search for reality I was trying to figure out one thing: why people have gotten so lost in the movie's violence and how that violence has made such robots of people.

Violence has been the constant attention-getter in this movie from what I've seen and heard. Ebert said it was one of the most violent movies he's ever seen. It is what has made non-Cata-holic Mowrio Galdamez watching it as if it were some other violent thriller like that House of a Thousand Corpses or whatever that trippy shit Rob Zombie made, want to see it again. Representing Cata-holics, I seen Cressa's and Dominic's blogs and both seem horrified by it and both have a new respect for Jeebus.

But Mellie Mel didn't even do this physical violence the best or even first. I thought other movies (of which I sadly can't name) shown to me at Loyola, all-male Catholic High School of Los Angeles, my junior year were more gruesome and disgusting, geared to emphasize suffering (plus I had watched a movie detailing the physiological torture Jesus might have gone through). The focus on the physical suffering that he went through worked on me inducing emotions of sympathy and a newfound respect for Jesus. So the shock of physical violence didn't fly at all in drawing me in towards this movie.

So a variety of emotions and reactions all attributed to physical violence. Violence in the movie was cool, violence in the movie induced sympathy and respect, violence induced anger.

Violence violence violence.

It was so natural in the movie. And in the bigger picture it's as if violence was so natural in that particular era and area. And I strongly question that.

Well hey from an entertainment point of view, violence in movies is still the most direct way to get the message across, I guess. And here's how violence in this movie does its work: Mel brought us to an "animalistic" and "primitive" and "savage" world driven by this physical violence and torture that gets away from the "comfortable" world of order and civilization created by humans. The violence in the movie goes in contrast to whatever we've seen in real life. So the violence then in this world in the movie is something natural like breathing. And you feel trapped and suffocated in it.

Adding fuel to the unviolent human's/civilian's fire (in the mind of course), Mel's black/white division of the world did a good job of amplifying those against Jesus as extremely "primitive" and "savage" and Pontius Pilate and other Christians as an innocent bystander. It was as if they ALL passionately hated him and ALL reacted in the same way (it got me wondering if they all hated him so strongly. I would have to ask exactly why they'd react so strongly). It has the effect of intensifying the mood and just promoting crap.

Yep, this violence was meant to induce sympathy and respect and love, etc. for Christ. And when a movie is meant to do something other than portray reality it has the effect of biasing the movie and making it thus making this work about God seem more artificial.

As Artificial. Human-made. That's the way to watch this kind of a non-fiction movie so you don't get bogged down in it. The main question I pose is would this movie be so moving and touching had it not been for this violence and brutal world portrayed by Mellie ? Would it be "oscar-worthy" as some on basketballboards.net think ?

Hell, no I fucking think.

Such a passionate fuckin' movie, and figuring out WHAT effects this movie was supposed to bring, I had to wonder exactly WHO this movie was geared towards. Oh would you look at that, I just remembered the previews.

The previews seemed to have white pre-teen-teenager kids in mind. First one was a light-hearted comedy about Christians called Saved ! with Mandy Moore in it. Then some crap about tigers in an "exotic" location like Asia. Continuing this waste of time was some movie about hicks not being allowed to water-ski. And capping off this crappola of white suburbanhood movies is this chick flick with Julia Styles falling for some prince. I was waiting for a movie with some infusion of "minorities" but they don't deserve a lead role in these movies. I guess it set the mood for Melly's Conservative white Catholic point of view movie. I guess those kids were supposed to be freaked the fuck out into loving Jee-bus then, is that right Mel ?

On the surface Mel meant for his story to act as a true/nonfiction story. But as a Catholic and part of a weird sect within it trying to portray to kids, he had to slip in a few of what he believed would help portray this movie. Therefore, I couldn't help but examine this mythifying effect of violence. And the violence seemed to be all it was about.

More on this movie later.

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by B.J. on 2/12/2004 07:16:00 AM 0 comments Print this post

Why I Hate Catholic Rituals

What do you believe in, biotch (in Dave Chappelle get "rich beech" tone announcing his production company) ?

God ? Allah ? Spirits ? Yourself ?

A few weeks ago I sauntered onto some Zen Buddhist meditation. It's a religion geared towards spirituality. Spirituality meaning you "finding yourself" like Nemo (actually like Dori and Merlin or whatever his name is, but that's besides the point). It's a religion that encourages participation.

Now here's what this meditation wasn't. This meditation wasn't the long humdrum one in a gassed up piece of architecture called a church with 500 other people. It wasn't the one where some tall balding jackarses named Russ sit in front of me and block my damn view. It isn't the religion in which the priest carries out rituals that might have meant something in the ancient past. It ain't Catholicism.

Catholic rituals just bore me to tears and always have me looking around for something fun to do during it. For serious it does, I hate it. But wait, why do I hate these rituals ?

Cause none of them have meaning to me. I still don't know what these rituals mean from a purely historical point of view despite 12 years at Catholic schools. There's no story. We just kind of engage in the receiving of the bread because Jebus died for us. There's no connection to me, I get lost. Helping to foster this lack of connection is a big varied crowd a priest needs to preach to. And he has in mind the old white foggies in the front.

In contrast, it seems that small-scale religions, like the Huichol "Indian" religion in Mexico and the Voodoo religion out of Haiti are much more successful in terms of getting someone to spirituality. Folks who engage in the rituals for those religions "find themselves." They know exactly what everything means because religion is part of their heritage and history. Their religions are interwoven with their heritage very strongly. However part of the reason religion is interwoven with their heritage could be that they are predominantly homogeneic. In these homogenic societies, religion is

Catholicism would find it hardpressed to interweave the many different heritages it has into one. I am in the United States as a Filipino kid with some Spanish blood somewhat forced upon a religion that has its roots in Rome out of admiration for a Jew. They go by rituals from quite a long while ago without anyone except for the priest really knowing what was meant by it other than Jesus getting nailed to a cross and dying for our sins. What ? Did his 12 friends got drunk off red wine to wash away their misery ? I dunno, *LoLz*, because I haven't focused on it.

I haven't focused on it because religion has been something seperate from the rest of my life, something I did on Sundays and in school which is not to imply that if it did become thrust in my face like a spikestrip and it was already pretty shoved in my face going to Catholic schools, that I would readily accept it. While some people can find solace in it, there is just no real connection to me at the moment.

(And BTW I don't want to be atheistic because the supernatural has not been disproven. That's where "logic" and "science" fall miserably short of its hype today and no different to religion. Err. . .this blurb down here will turn into another post some day)

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by B.J. on 12/10/2003 02:12:00 AM 0 comments Print this post

Why Voodoo Is Even Cooler than I thought

So what comes to mind when you think of voodoo ?

"Black magic" ? Chickens getting their heads bitten off and blood being spit out ? The voodoo dolls that Ricky Martin referred to in his La Vida Broca song ?

Now throw those chicken-headed assumptions against your refrigerator with all those magnets of "I love New Hampshire" and "I left my heart in Wyoming" on it.

Voodoo is a religion practiced in the African diaspora, mostly in Haiti. Yes, Haiti, that little shithole of poverty, etc. etc. Historically, it's been a religion of the poor urban folk, which is just about everyone, in Haiti. For a select few, it helps establish status at least temporarily.

It's really a religion for the people. A lot of people's beliefs easily fit in with voodoo because it has no written dogma. So a lot of people of Catholic faith in Haiti also practice voodoo, seeing the spirits they serve in voodoo as giving their messages to God. There also appears to be a lot of acceptance with these voodoo communities. The author of this horrible, but informative book called Mama Lola became a voodoo priestess working as some white middle-class anthropologist.

But what characterizes the religion most are its spirit posessions and so-called curses. They believe these spirits give them the tools to survive. They don't ask these spirits for actual survival. For example, they're not going to stand in front of a bus and see if they've got protection from the spirits, but they need to realize that they have the tools of eyes, ears, and legs to step the fook away from the bus.

It's not a religion that eases suffering or aims to eliminate all of it because suffering is life, but rather empowers people to deal with suffering. People have to live within their own characters to deal with this suffering. More than anything this religion is an enrichment of the mind.

Now rewind back to before I told you to throw those chicken-headed assumptions against your fridge.

Voodoo has obviously been portrayed negatively that these practices that are public in Haiti become private here in the States because of the racism and the minority of its existence. Most of the damage on voodoo has been subtle as the word has been used to connote something "shady" that doesn't work ala "voodoo economics" or something wicked "voodoo magic." However one damaging thing was that Euros and Americans were blaming voodoo for the AIDS epidemic on the basis that these poor "misguided" black fools drank blood.

Just trump this up as another example of how America tramples the minority and underprivileged.

I like how this religion highlights the important things in life and accepts everything, how it knows something the majority doesn't.

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by B.J. on 8/28/2003 09:46:00 PM 0 comments Print this post

Battle with Religion

I believe in a supreme being.

But I'm not so sure that I believe in the worshipping practices. The parts where I have to kneel, and assert his greatness. They are rituals. Robert Sapolsky, writer of this awesome book, The Trouble with Testosterone, calls out some of these rituals as being obsessive-compulsive in the context of a psychological and biological point of view. He states, "Religion is not just a foundation of thought and faith. Nor is it just a set of moral imperatives, or a set of cultural values to be shared with a community. In its traditional, orthodox incarnations, it is also a collection of small habits, behaviors, and prohibitions, a myriad of everyday activities and sayings."

"During periods of stress or of anxiety in our lives, most of us will find ourselves having certain small behaviors or thoughts that we cannot suppress, little rituals that, repeated once, are benign, but repeated at length, become irritants."

Even though I do believe in some kind of supreme being, I wonder why a lot simply don't. If the supreme being was that great, why wouldn't he make everyone believe in him ?

In a historical context, belief in hell for not believing in a religion seems like something of ancient times, when strong people wanted justification to coerce people into believing their religion. People believed in religion as comfort to the big unknown of death. Today's society of sprawling democracy has laid a heavy assault on worshipping anything. From the democratic view point, it seems like nothing more than a ploy for Conservatives to make the disadvantaged accept their lot in life, even though those Cons will tell them such empty meaningless phrases like "keep hope."

But from the personal context with my family, friends, background in mind, there's nothing about religious practices that relates to me or anyone else, unless you really love those inaudible Latin phrases.

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