why do i do what i do?

The age old question right? Well, right now I am training to run an olympic distance triathlon and trying to raise $2900 for an organization I am not particularly tied to. So, of course, I have had to ask myself why. This morning, in a fundraising email, this is what I have come up with (and I wanted to share...):

Why I Jumped Into This Whole Shindig // By: Me

"This is not only my fourth week of training, this week I also celebrate my twenty fourth birthday. As benchmarks often do, planning for my birthday has sparked up a healthy amount of self reflection. What am I doing at age twenty four? For who? Why? In honor of my twenty fourth year, I have decided to share a bit of my mission with you.

Recently when I have asked myself, ‘Why am I running an Olympic distance triathlon? Why am I raising money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society? I am not personally affected by Leukemia or Lymphoma and nor is anyone close to me, so why?’ I have reflected and I have answered:

Because I can; because I am healthy. I have been given this body that is able, this body that allows me to physically participate in my life. It is wild when I think about it; I am able to bike across the Brooklyn Bridge, I am able to go to yoga in the mornings, I am able to ski on the snow in the winter and the lake in the summer, I am able to go on runs in the woods with my mom, and I am able to take lunchtime walks in Manhattan with my friends. I am so grateful. If I desire to do something (with enough hard work) I am able to make it happen. And while I am able, my health doesn’t come for free; I feel a responsibility to maintain my health (training for this darn thing…) and I feel responsibility to use my health for good.

So then I have asked myself, ‘Why do I feel responsible? For what good? For who?’ And after some time reflecting, I have answered:

Throughout my life y’all have raised me in communities that take care of each other. You have shown me that I can create good; that I can contribute. You have also taught me that my skills and talents are not only mine, they are not meant for isolation. You have created me to be a person who wants to be an active, positive part of this world. After all the Catholic schooling, after all the Justice and Peace Studies, after all the trips to foreign countries, after all the Yoga training, my fundamental faith is that we are all in this together; there is a thread that binds us. The gifts that we each have been given are meant for us all to profit from; we aren’t islands. Our life’s work isn’t to become someone else; it is to become our best selves; to develop our gifts and to use them to help each other. Whether I hear it from the Gospel or the Yoga Sutra, we are made to love one another and love means hard work, sacrifice, empathy, and responsibility. I believe we are each other’s responsibility, each other’s support, each other’s brothers and sisters, and that we are made with abilities that allow us to support each other. Someday I will suffer; I have no doubt of that. I may not have Leukemia or Lymphoma, but I will suffer, and I hope that there will be an organization like The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society fighting to end my suffering; that’s how this all works right?

In response to my self-reflection, I am raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society because I believe that it is my responsibility to use my gifts to alleviate the suffering of those around me, and today I can use my health to alleviate the suffering of those in my community suffering from Leukemia and Lymphoma."

There it is, something to love (or hate) today. If you are interested in learning more, check out: http://pages.teamintraining.org/nyc/nyctri12/mryantdiup

what disappointed me about the hunger games:

[Author's Note: Below I will analyze a book written for 12 year olds. I know that. And I will probably see the movie for 12 year olds soon enough. I know that. It seems to be a theme in The Capital these days...]

I did not hate the Hunger Games. Let’s start with that. A strong, independent female protagonist? Thank God. This is not going to be me bashing the books, rather it is an explanation of what I keep trying, but failing, to say when the pop culture phenomenon of a children’s book comes up in conversation.

The books were a baby step into the conversation of oppression; and for that, I am thankful. What follows are my thoughts on how The Hunger Games got “so close, but no cigar.”

What disappoints me is that Katniss, the heroine, overcomes oppression with oppression; she hates that The Capital uses violence as a tool to oppress the districts, and yet, the only tool she considers to overcome The Capital is violence. Katniss attempts to eliminate violence with violence, and thus the cycle of oppression continues. As has happened time and time again in our own world, eventually the revolutionary (Katniss, The Districts) will become the oppressor in this story. Collins, the author, does not challenge the reader to access other options for overcoming oppression; in fact, she only encourages our world’s assumption that the only way to resolve conflict is through violence. To break a system of oppression, there must by systemic change. How could Katniss possibly eliminate violence WITH violence? Could Collins not have created a transformative revolution? Where are Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Desmound Tutu, or the many other non-violent revolutionaries of our time's voice in this story?

Martin Luther King Jr taught that "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." But what does that mean? How can Katniss love The Capital? How can she create a new society without killing those that oppose her? That’s idealistic and naive right? Well, that’s the trick, she has to imagine a world that doesn’t function like hers does, a world where she allows for transformation, where she imagines that people who once disagreed could cohabitate. This imaginative process isn’t easy, it takes time and effort-- killing the other is certainly quicker and easier. But with the kill, the tables turn and the oppressed (Katniss, The Districts) are no different than the oppressor (The Capital), through their action they say “I am superior, my life is more valuable than yours, you cannot exist in my new world.” And with the seed of that weed planted, oppression lives.

Until we are forced to step outside of our worldview, the truths that are so deeply engrained in us (violence is the only way to solve international conflict), we are stuck in this circle. I can’t help but believe that there is a third way. A fourth way. A fifth way. And until someone is creative enough to write a book, that catches fire, and challenges us to consider another way, we are stuck believing what we are taught.

And that is what really got me about the Hunger Games. Such books have been written, and movies made, and speeches given, but not to the audience the Collins holds captive. Collins has a loyal band of us raised in our world’s Capital feeding off her ever word, and she could have made that very statement, she could have said "No guys, we don't have to think like The Capital, we can create a new world." And she didn't. We are not asked to think creatively. We are not asked to be more than The Capital. We are not challenged to think that this world could exist in a way that doesn’t promote violence, that doesn’t tear families apart, that doesn’t force those that defend us into a life of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. The Hunger Games are another opiate for the masses; another story that only solidifies what we already know, another reason to back The Capital that we all live in, another reason not to question conflicts around the world, because violence is the only way right?


And, the diagram I drew last week to understand what I was upset about: