NEVER! GIVE!UP! - Knowing that You Have Value

I was  raised Republican. I am still not a Democrat, though I am no longer a Republican either.
Therefore, being out of work for an extended period and having to use assistance to survive is VERY demoralizing and makes me feel useless and like a parasite. Applying and sometimes interviewing and getting no calls makes me feel useless, as if I can't do any better than be a parasite. I can understand why losing a job drives some people to suicide, I felt suicidal over such things in the past. This time, not so much, as I have had so much more hope all the way through this than any other time I was out of work, plus I have people in my life that consistently show me I have value in spite of it, which has not always been the case.

My roommate, who is disabled due to Asperger's syndrome, says that even though he is having to pay almost everything right now out of his limited disability income, his life is still improved since I returned. He was, as he put it, "stagnating" while I was in MI, because he saw no prospects or hope for his life. He was gradually giving up and reverting to just amusing himself and passing the time till he dies - what a horrible feeling! Now, in spite of these obstacles, he does have hope and something to reach for.

My teaching him to drive goes a long way. Scrap metal is, according to his calculations, a perfectly viable way for him to survive. Once he has access to a truck, the possibility of putting disability income behind him and earning his own living - a dream that has often seemed impossible - will be within reach. If he has that to fall back on, PT or FT or temporary jobs will no longer be a risk, because he cannot be "cut off" from scrap metal for working elsewhere, and it will still be there whether or not working for others pans out. This is particularly true once he gets his driving license and his own truck. He tells me all the time that unemployment is at least connected to something that I have worked for and earned, whereas he has to psychologically cope with "you can't earn a living for yourself". That, of course, will likely change pretty soon.

I feel dependent when I am working too, because at any moment a change in the winds for the employer can spell disaster for me, as it recently has, and there will be nothing I can do about it. I "depend" on them and the future is incalculable. I, like Matthew, long to make my own way in life and put assistance from these programs behind me for good. Self employment is my dream, in combination with very self-sufficient (and markedly less costly) "Green" living. Since I was a teen I was expecting a collapse, and have been learning about self-sufficiency and homesteading and other ways to shield ones self from that.

Scrap metal is not, for me, a longterm prospect right now but on the short term it can be "insurance" against unemployment. In Decatur, there are a lot of people doing scrap metal because we have a metal recycling center in town. Plus, with the economy here doing so bad, and continually declining for so long, everybody is looking for alternatives to "a job" because jobs are scarce. At some point, even that becomes somewhat competitive in a place like this but so far it has not caused us a problem.

In our neighborhood, most houses are rentals, so landlords are always throwing things away. We have gotten a lot of mattresses and box springs and other furniture that we have dismantled for wood and metal. Without my car, we have no way to take it in, but we still collect it, especially Matthew. By the time the truck is in the driveway, we might even be able to totally fill it, who knows?

I will be going to RCC tomorrow, I hope, to register for classes. I am very concerned about all the things that can still go wrong, but on the whole I am hopeful. I will just have to take better care of myself so I will not become sick so much as I did before. Getting something better to drive plays a role in that too, as it means there will be no walking long distances in bad, freezing weather like I did last time I went there. As it is, I am fighting a sinus infection. I am resting today so that tomorrow, hopefully, I will be up to the possible 4+ hours in the waiting area to talk to the people I must talk to and fill out papers, etc.

In school before, I severely neglected myself in the name of saving money and limiting debt. That did not serve me well in the end. I will remember that and learn from it, and make myself a higher priority this time. I just need to remember that I am worth it.

Please remember that you are worth it too.

I think this is DuBourg Hall at SLU, one of the biggest disappointments of my life.
This time, I will not need to transfer to a new school to finish my degree, it is only a two-year program. Doing it right the second time around.

Godspeed.

~Mother Star

NEVER! GIVE! UP! - Entering 2015: Things I Am Thankful For

2014 has had its ups and downs, as we all have probably experienced.
Last year ended in a much worse state for me than this one, despite the setbacks of these past four months.
The last three months of last year were worse, and the first three of this year almost unspeakable.
One year ago, I was feeling like I was back where I started, except I had to keep reminding myself a couple of things were better and different, There was more of a beginning going on and more hope. I had an online job, editing video for a Doctor in MA who  was trying to help people get off of drugs. He was trying to get his message out, and I was one of the people trying to help him do it.
I/have more to be hopeful about now then I did then. Some of the progress I was pursing late last year, that was interrupted by sheer hell, is now being resumed in a different place, with a better support system. I was enrolled in Black Hawk College for graphic art, but had to drop the week before classes started. I could be returning to RCC on the 12th. I need to see if it will impact RCIA, hopefully not, and verify how I will get home from school if I take that fourth class that would put me at full time. and whether it is an option to go part-time if needed. If not,I will do it online, through Ashworth College.
I was going to do RCIA last year, but missed the first class and thought I had to be there for it to do it at all. Now I am doing RCIA which I had been wanting to get done for about two years.
The thing I am most thankful for is having people who love me,
I also have access to therapy.
It is almost certain I am going to buy this house. I have wanted a house of my own desperately since I was little. I have wanted this house since I started working on it in 2010. I'm just a few steps away from that, now.
I have found more direction for what to do with my writing, and am waiting to hear about whether or not I will be published. THAT has never happened before ever.
I have a piano in my house now, so when I can resume lessons and such, I have something adequate to work with. That was a huge obstacle that stood in my path for a long time.
Since about 2004 or 2005 I have been interested in doing real estate.
I have the know how to get started from nothing, although it will possibly take time to get that off the ground. I at least know how to do it and have the tools needed to succeed - except a respectable vehicle. That part is coming soon if I can get into RCC this year, which I most likely can.

If we do get the vehicle, it has to be a truck, so Matt and myself can do scrap metal as well. I am not against helping people move either, for some compensation.

Lessons from Catching Fire: The Morphlings

There is indeed a lot to consider in these films, and lately I feel like doing character write-ups.

Deep down, we tend to value strength, defined as the capability and willingness to use force. By these standards, the Morphlings are considered cowards. Since our value system is not so much different from Panem's, most of us probably think they're cowards too. That was my initial conclusion even. They hid, and did not engage anyone in battle to win.

Other tributes are not the only dangers on the Hunger Games. Game-masters create adversities, such as extreme cold, computer generated creatures that have actual substance, the poisonous or otherwise dangerous fog, rain, insects, birds, and etc. The Morphlings are bit parts, but so are the all the tributes in the alliance called The Careers, and people seem (perhaps unhealthily?) interested in them.
Both of the Morphlings in Catching Fire won their first times in the Hunger Games by hiding until all the other tributes died.
Remember, these were children that were yanked from their families and friends and sent to battle for no reason. The Morphlings managed to protect themselves and stay hidden, always dodging the game-master's hellish creations, while the others killed each other. Eventually, they must have evaded the last actually-fighting tribute(s) until an element created by the game-masters eliminated them. After surviving the Hunger Games, they both became drug addicts. I wonder if winning by means not really respected by the society they lived in fed in to that? Winning the Hunger Games supposedly  brought "pride to your district." How proud would their district have been of these two, really? The culture of The Hunger Games' Panem ran on violence and subjugation, it was part of life for about everybody.

In this situation, doesn't choosing not to fight equal defiance? How is that not rebellion? In a society that values force, and runs on force, doesn't winning non-violently say something? When you have been thrown into a sort of cage and ordered by the powers that be to fight and kill until only one is left standing, how is not fighting anything other than counter-culture? Katniss did not want to fight anyone either, she only killed in self-defense when she was being attacked, or out of mercy when Cato was dying very painfully.

Are they really cowards? Well, let's see. The female Morphling was hiding in the trees, camouflaged, when the computer-generated killer monkeys cornered Peeta. She jumped out of her hiding place which happened to be behind where Peeta was, and got right in the way of the vicious beasts. She had no weapons, no way to fight back. She was instantly attacked and savagely had her throat torn into by the game-masters' creatures. It is not fully clear from the film alone whether she acted out of supportt for the rebellion or not, but she may have. In a very touching scene that reveals Peeta's gentleness, she is carried out to the safety of the waters to see the sunset, and passes away in comparative peace, mesmerized by the artificial but realistic sunset. Peeta said, "She sacrificed herself for me and I didn't even know her name."

Was this Morphling a coward? I think not.



The Lesson: Again, we think too much like Panem. Too much emphasis on brutality and combat-worthiness-type of stuff. Too much judgment of people.
The Morphlings may have been hiding from their feelings in substances, which was indeed cowardly. However, that doesn't mean that "coward" is all they were, or were capable of. Strength is not only measured in combat ability and such like. It is not even measured in getting your way or "winning" whatever that means. It is measured in the positive impact one makes, and how much one is willing to risk or pay to give all that they have, or to give their very best to the world.

Godspeed.

~ Mother Star.