I started writing this out of necessity, because the standard explanation of self is getting hard to manage in everyday conversations with those met – and met for good reason – but with whom the good reasons often cannot be shared because so many elements must be exchanged with the counterparts for protocol, and for safety. And because context of one’s self and work are increasingly difficult to properly deliver in conversations that are more frequently shared in commutes than over dinner or drinks. So, here I provide you with elements that include some pleasantries and some of the substance of what I do. This way it can be referenced later, and not repress what else the conversations can be between us.
This is the reality I live with, because what I do is difficult to describe, face to face or even in a letter of moderate length. Maybe it’s my poor speaking skills. Maybe it is my self-conscious trip-switches. But, it usually takes about an hour of me talking for folks to have their light-bulbs illuminate, for them to sufficiently get it. “It” being the guidebook I am writing. See, I have been working as much as I can, for the last four years, on a guidebook that will deliver the human rights of education and health care to millions who are denied them. Whether they are denied them actively or indifferently, doesn’t matter in the least. It is unacceptable, either way. Whether they are a local citizen, an immigrant, migrant or refugee, I don’t care. There is a need for this social integration and trauma recovery guidebook among survivors of torture, genocide, combat, disaster, domestic violence and child abuse, and the kids of all of them, too. Maybe this includes you. The book is voiced to these folks, not about them.
Much like someone I met by virtue of exploring the horizon in more than one direction, Yonnas, I know enough of myself to know I’m much more than what constitutes the categories in which I find community or paycheck. I trust that this is quite common.
I am a 30-year-old resident of Denver, Colorado, USA. I was born in Colorado. My bouquet of European-derived relatives were largely collected in and around Chicago, Illinois, for most of the 20th century and constitute a mixture of the plentiful categories of folks who transplanted themselves and their families from the lands of their ancestors to distant ones unknown. I don’t have any graduate degrees, yet. It took me most of my adulthood to establish myself in any jobs considered “real” in long-established communities.
What drives me includes the spirit of my mother who did what she could – not only what was expected; and the craven need-for-us-to-be-better absorbed from an Afghanistan-based US military officer I met who had too much of an intimate understanding of many of the reasons why this guidebook is needed – like what happens when gloves come off and a society rabidly insists its hands are still clean.
What keeps me going also includes the demand for excellence I see in English teachers I know, whose mission is to see the excellence enabled in adolescents and young adults who have not often been exposed to it. And it includes the determination– often beat down, but resilient –inside many of the students who I am able to share the room with week to week as an instructor of adult education. Absolutely beautiful and far too rare it is to see the twenty, thirty, forty or fifty-year-old learn to read and do arithmetic and lead themselves, and then advocate for others who need much the same – like members of the family or community.
I am an only child. My mom was the primary winner of bread in the household, but I never sensed it was ever a competition. I was well into adolescence when I learned that it was, in fact, not common across the board for the dad to do the laundry, and all those errands. My dad enjoys errands like I enjoy sci-fi shows. So, most days my dad was the primary caregiver and keeper of order; thus my mother was my favorite during the school year. But, come vacation time that would reverse as he was a middle school teacher with the same schedule.
I had a hat collection as a kid. My mom would bring me hats from many of the places she had traveled. My dad would buy me many from places we ventured together during the summer breaks. There really is nothing like pretending to be a bit of a cowboy or Payne Stewart or Zorro on an otherwise average Aurora, Colorado, day. The image of a two-billed Grand Canyon hat (for North and South Rims) on my goofy will-be-geeky six or eight-year-old head vividly remains in my memories, though I do not know why.
I liked and excelled at math and science as a youngster, but stymied with those for a while. Ultimately, I followed social studies and language arts more as an adolescent. Not entirely unconnected, I had a couple of teachers that I think would have made the world a better place simply by not having authority over classrooms of kids. And grey was my favorite color. Today, I can say that grey is my favorite with or without being named it, and regardless of how Crayola and most of those in North America may choose to spell it. Though philosophically I’m sure the debate will ensue about cause and effect, and the influence of such factors on the development of one’s path.
But be careful, I learned, with what you pretend to be. I pretended too much to be a baseball player. While I tried other sports, it was the only one I continued to pretend to be into, for the acceptance and community. But the consequence was that I only exercised a season a year and progressively got fat. Too bad I couldn’t find a way to enjoy a more active sport or activity until a decade later.
I pretended to be an enlightened vegetarian once too, without being adequately knowledgeable of necessary human nutrition to maintain wellness. That meningitis made itself at home and multiplied throughout my central nervous system is not coincidental. So, be careful with how you change your diet, for whatever reasons you may do so.
From my vantage point, after wandering most of my life through a variety of communities and locales; subjects of interest and activities; professions and avenues of education – and giving more than my fair share of benefits-of-doubts to many eager to misuse them – it appears I am properly designed to be designing what I am. While much of me would often like that not to be the case, I think I’m doing this right.
Doing it right: The guidebook is voiced to and actively addresses those often only talked about, survivors of so many of the horrible things that we are prone to do to one another. The guidebook will offer introductions to important topics and social themes often taken for granted by established members of the community who often are the designers of much of the material that they will come across.
I know, because I am one of those with much that can be taken for granted. I should add though, beyond the stable background, I have also been a remedial student; unable to do common social activities like swim or roller-skate; been a failure at a fair share of things including a foreign language for a decade; have worked with uninsured disabled patients and their families; have instructed refugees on healthy habits (after personally learning what not to do) and have been a disoriented migrant myself whose anxiety can ooze out of his eyes from time to time.
Doing it right: Knowing how to wear a lot of hats, so to speak.
Doing it right: The guidebook does not pretend to be everything to everyone. Anyone acting against social inclusion and mutual understanding for closed-community and hostile intents and is against respecting equal protections for all human beings is not in the audience. Individuals who are adamantly against the guidebook and its goals will not be cowered to. And the book will not apologize for this. The book will be common space, like a park and a library, for a pluralistic and forward progress-oriented community regardless of national borders, organized religious dogma, or traditional marginalization of one group over the other.
The guidebook is here to serve the individuals, not the politics. The guidebook seeks no atrocious aims, or nefarious intents. The guidebook does not threaten the celebration of culture or beliefs. But the guidebook does not support the use of celebrated beliefs in the persecution of different groups of people. With humans, there will always be debate and there will always be conflict. Even with mutual-understanding will come divergent communities, and ultimately cultures. But in responsible societies there does not need to be collateral damage of communities and individuals persecuted or confined away from the basic opportunities and resources enjoyed by others.
The book offers access to the benefits of both practical knowledge and formal education as supplementary material to those who have professional providers or direct relatives, neighbors or coworkers to help guide them. But most importantly, it provides these very things and community belonging and support to those without such advocates. The guidebook will help them build bridges over what gaps they face in their orientation to the society they are a part of. They will use it to help themselves recover from their pain or persecution, feel secure with what is sacred to them, develop additional skills and expand their beautiful brains with topics and ideas that interest them. As are their rights, for being living, breathing human beings.
I, along with a few others, am developing this book for those who may not know yet who Nelson Mandela is, where Rome is or how to manage anxiety, but who have seen enough burned around them to be afraid to expect any tangible result from what hope remains in them.
What winter entails at extreme northern or southern latitudes, how to nutritionally navigate a convenience store or the frozen food section of a supermarket, or how to read a bus schedule – these are parts of this book. Strategies in how to reduce chronic pain or how to navigate the paradoxes involving housing-employment-bank account-health service-library-etc-etc will be well addressed. Basically, tools to aid folks in setting up a sustainable lifestyle, on a budget, in an economy and a culture and a climate that is always in flux and may be wholly unfamiliar, will be bountifully offered.
you and “standard” will never go together in the same sentence. So happy to read your writing, i’ve always enjoyed it, and your thoughts, actions, visons in general. With or without the guidebook, you are and will continue to make the world a better place.