Trying to stay beautiful
During this trip, I have been exposed to a lot of ugly things. Poverty and the great disparity between the rich and the poor, pollution, ugly travelers and tourists (not physically, mind you), intolerance and prejudice, massive machismo, excessive alcohol and drug use (why are we running away from reality?), theft…I certainly don’t mean for this to sound like my trip has been negative, but there are an abundance of things we are generally only exposed to via the media whilst not having a concrete sense of what these things look like and mean in the real world. We are able to keep these “ugly” things at arms’ length without letting them enter into our realities. As a traveler, I also have that option—to keep these things at a distance and not let them affect my world, my point of view, and in essence me. Not taking these things into account, especially when I am face to face with them, and ignoring them…obviously this leads to ignorance. I have ignored so many things in my life, and therefore been ignorant of a great many things in this world. Of course, we are all ignorant as it is thoroughly impossible to have knowledge of every issue and every ongoing in this world. But we need to start somewhere.
This train of thought has been slowly threading its way through my mind since I arrived in Peru back in August. I was a new traveler, just beginning to be exposed to the nuances and specificities to be found when traveling in South America (the special kinds of attention paid to tourists, both good and bad, the drastic differences between the developed and underdeveloped world, the cultural differences, and so on. But the physical reality of this particular angle struck me the other day as I was walking along Thames street in Palermo, warming up for a run. Now, I’ve been an object of lust in the eyes of many men and I have been subjected to many sexual comments and an abundance of irritating energy. Every time I hear a, “Hola, muñeca,” or a, “Oh, que linda sos!” or get unabashedly checked out by a man pushing his baby in a stroller with his wife at his side, I feel molested, and my insides cringe. Often, my solution has been to put on a non-plussed face (thus resulting in me making myself physically ugly) and trying to fight the comments with my own negative energy (thus making me feel ugly inside). Fighting their negative actions with my own negative actions is actually making me into an ugly person! But how often do two negative actions result in a positive situation? Even when I put on the ugly face, the comments still pour in, which renders “ugly face” essentially fruitless, so first, why would I make myself ugly just to slam my own version of some other person’s ugly karma at them? And secondly, why carry on with the ugly method when it doesn’t even work???
I try to bring myself back to the days of Sunday school, the place where we learned our morals, the right’s and wrong’s, and how to be a good person. Where, for example, we learn that you help people—if you see someone unknowingly drop their belonging, you pick it up and give it back to them. If someone appears in need, you help them. If someone does you wrong, you love them anyway. These things all seemed so simple when we were children, so what happened? When did things become so complicated? We learned that if we didn’t stick up for ourselves, we would get run over. We learned that we needed to start taking care of ourselves rather than worrying about everyone else’s lives because we were the only ones looking out for ourselves. So then when we saw that person drop their scarf in the street, we began to think about how much of an inconvenience it would be for us to take time out of our day to stop and pick up the scarf and return it to its owner. Or maybe we would feel silly reaching down in front of all the other passers-by (who were doing just that, passing by and not stopping to help) and helping that unfortunate person. Maybe we let ourselves be influenced by those masses that were also not helping, allowing us to feel better about not helping. Or maybe we thought, “Well I certainly would take better care of my things, and that person should be more careful. Maybe they deserve to lose that scarf to make them realize their carelessness.” Do any of these points have validity? Do they point on the weaknesses in others or do they really point out the weakness we have in ourselves? And of course when I refer to a “we”, I really mean “me”. Are all of these things just excuses that let me stray from being the best person I can really be? I mean, I’m not oblivious to these details, obviously I see them, so why do I not always act on them in that way that I was always taught was the best way to act? Is it really the best way to act? Will my act of kindness actually help that person or will it make them more careless in the future, knowing that they are cared for? I know that personally, had I been the person that dropped their scarf, I would be grateful to that helpful stranger who returned it to me. I’m sure that most people, in fact, would be grateful.
Are they self-protection or self-preservation?
Let’s try to apply the Sunday school principle to machismo and what has usually resulted in the ugly face situation. Let’s say, hypothetically, I’m walking down the street and some nasty old man standing in a doorway sees me walking down the sidewalk in his direction and he locks his eyes on the target and he lets out a, “Mmm, que bonita.” What is the best thing to do? Turn to him and say, “Kindly, sir, would you please refrain from making comments?” at which point he would be so excited by the attention that it would only encourage him in carrying on with me as well as encouraging him in making more comments in the future? Mm, decidedly not. Another idea was to walk around with Carlos (who can, on occasion, be described as hot-headed) walking about 15 feet behind me, to “take care of business” after those jerks make their comments. Although that idea does theoretically give me a great deal of satisfaction (key word, theoretically), my best idea has been to build a group of women to parade around in the streets and teach a lesson to those men that have the nerves to make comments at women, by having this group of women rebuke these men for their thoughtless comments. But this idea is fraught with trouble by the simple fact that amongst my girl friends here in Buenos Aires, I am the only one who is exposed to this phenomenon so intensely.
So. What do I do? I try my best to ignore it, pretend that I don’t see it, that I don’t see them (though that’s pretty unsuccessful, evident in the irritating feeling that persists). One of my Spanish teachers suggested that I use headphones in my ignoring efforts. Oh yeah, and there we end up back at that word ignore, and the ignorance. At times, is the best thing to do actually nothing? This same Spanish teacher who told me to use headphones also told me that if men don’t make these comments to women in the street, it’s seen as an insult. Only the really grotesque comments (the ones that come after a negative response to an “inoffensive” comment) are seen as unpleasant. Which means that this whole situation came about due to both populations, male and female. Which therefore means that until this phenomenon starts bothering the native females, the opinions of the infrequent tourist gals aren’t going to have weight.
This is a very wandering journal entry sort of blog, and all of the ugly problems that I initially posited cannot be subjected to the same conclusion as the ugly face situation. Each situation has to be evaluated of its own accord, and I will continue trying to live my life by making the right choice. Whichever I deem the right choice. I guess my advice to me is to try not to let my response to ugliness I see in the world be ugly as well. I need to continue trying to be the most positive, beautiful person that I can be. I much prefer a friendly smile on my face than a scowl. I will continue to empathize when I see other people who haven’t had the same opportunities that I have had. I won’t ignore it, and even if I don’t know what to do about it, I will take note. I will observe. I will know that instead of making a superficial effort at fixing a grand number of problems, I will reserve my energy to focus on a few issues, and will make greater strides with those specified efforts. I will continue evaluating before deciding where I want my energy to go (knowing full well that at some point in the near future the strictly observational stage will come to an end and I will need to actually start acting). But hand in hand with those efforts, I will continue having positive one-on-one interactions in my life and spreading my positive energy one person at a time to those people I come into contact with. I am going to try my best to leave a positive imprint on the world.
This train of thought has been slowly threading its way through my mind since I arrived in Peru back in August. I was a new traveler, just beginning to be exposed to the nuances and specificities to be found when traveling in South America (the special kinds of attention paid to tourists, both good and bad, the drastic differences between the developed and underdeveloped world, the cultural differences, and so on. But the physical reality of this particular angle struck me the other day as I was walking along Thames street in Palermo, warming up for a run. Now, I’ve been an object of lust in the eyes of many men and I have been subjected to many sexual comments and an abundance of irritating energy. Every time I hear a, “Hola, muñeca,” or a, “Oh, que linda sos!” or get unabashedly checked out by a man pushing his baby in a stroller with his wife at his side, I feel molested, and my insides cringe. Often, my solution has been to put on a non-plussed face (thus resulting in me making myself physically ugly) and trying to fight the comments with my own negative energy (thus making me feel ugly inside). Fighting their negative actions with my own negative actions is actually making me into an ugly person! But how often do two negative actions result in a positive situation? Even when I put on the ugly face, the comments still pour in, which renders “ugly face” essentially fruitless, so first, why would I make myself ugly just to slam my own version of some other person’s ugly karma at them? And secondly, why carry on with the ugly method when it doesn’t even work???
I try to bring myself back to the days of Sunday school, the place where we learned our morals, the right’s and wrong’s, and how to be a good person. Where, for example, we learn that you help people—if you see someone unknowingly drop their belonging, you pick it up and give it back to them. If someone appears in need, you help them. If someone does you wrong, you love them anyway. These things all seemed so simple when we were children, so what happened? When did things become so complicated? We learned that if we didn’t stick up for ourselves, we would get run over. We learned that we needed to start taking care of ourselves rather than worrying about everyone else’s lives because we were the only ones looking out for ourselves. So then when we saw that person drop their scarf in the street, we began to think about how much of an inconvenience it would be for us to take time out of our day to stop and pick up the scarf and return it to its owner. Or maybe we would feel silly reaching down in front of all the other passers-by (who were doing just that, passing by and not stopping to help) and helping that unfortunate person. Maybe we let ourselves be influenced by those masses that were also not helping, allowing us to feel better about not helping. Or maybe we thought, “Well I certainly would take better care of my things, and that person should be more careful. Maybe they deserve to lose that scarf to make them realize their carelessness.” Do any of these points have validity? Do they point on the weaknesses in others or do they really point out the weakness we have in ourselves? And of course when I refer to a “we”, I really mean “me”. Are all of these things just excuses that let me stray from being the best person I can really be? I mean, I’m not oblivious to these details, obviously I see them, so why do I not always act on them in that way that I was always taught was the best way to act? Is it really the best way to act? Will my act of kindness actually help that person or will it make them more careless in the future, knowing that they are cared for? I know that personally, had I been the person that dropped their scarf, I would be grateful to that helpful stranger who returned it to me. I’m sure that most people, in fact, would be grateful.
Are they self-protection or self-preservation?
Let’s try to apply the Sunday school principle to machismo and what has usually resulted in the ugly face situation. Let’s say, hypothetically, I’m walking down the street and some nasty old man standing in a doorway sees me walking down the sidewalk in his direction and he locks his eyes on the target and he lets out a, “Mmm, que bonita.” What is the best thing to do? Turn to him and say, “Kindly, sir, would you please refrain from making comments?” at which point he would be so excited by the attention that it would only encourage him in carrying on with me as well as encouraging him in making more comments in the future? Mm, decidedly not. Another idea was to walk around with Carlos (who can, on occasion, be described as hot-headed) walking about 15 feet behind me, to “take care of business” after those jerks make their comments. Although that idea does theoretically give me a great deal of satisfaction (key word, theoretically), my best idea has been to build a group of women to parade around in the streets and teach a lesson to those men that have the nerves to make comments at women, by having this group of women rebuke these men for their thoughtless comments. But this idea is fraught with trouble by the simple fact that amongst my girl friends here in Buenos Aires, I am the only one who is exposed to this phenomenon so intensely.
So. What do I do? I try my best to ignore it, pretend that I don’t see it, that I don’t see them (though that’s pretty unsuccessful, evident in the irritating feeling that persists). One of my Spanish teachers suggested that I use headphones in my ignoring efforts. Oh yeah, and there we end up back at that word ignore, and the ignorance. At times, is the best thing to do actually nothing? This same Spanish teacher who told me to use headphones also told me that if men don’t make these comments to women in the street, it’s seen as an insult. Only the really grotesque comments (the ones that come after a negative response to an “inoffensive” comment) are seen as unpleasant. Which means that this whole situation came about due to both populations, male and female. Which therefore means that until this phenomenon starts bothering the native females, the opinions of the infrequent tourist gals aren’t going to have weight.
This is a very wandering journal entry sort of blog, and all of the ugly problems that I initially posited cannot be subjected to the same conclusion as the ugly face situation. Each situation has to be evaluated of its own accord, and I will continue trying to live my life by making the right choice. Whichever I deem the right choice. I guess my advice to me is to try not to let my response to ugliness I see in the world be ugly as well. I need to continue trying to be the most positive, beautiful person that I can be. I much prefer a friendly smile on my face than a scowl. I will continue to empathize when I see other people who haven’t had the same opportunities that I have had. I won’t ignore it, and even if I don’t know what to do about it, I will take note. I will observe. I will know that instead of making a superficial effort at fixing a grand number of problems, I will reserve my energy to focus on a few issues, and will make greater strides with those specified efforts. I will continue evaluating before deciding where I want my energy to go (knowing full well that at some point in the near future the strictly observational stage will come to an end and I will need to actually start acting). But hand in hand with those efforts, I will continue having positive one-on-one interactions in my life and spreading my positive energy one person at a time to those people I come into contact with. I am going to try my best to leave a positive imprint on the world.
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