Boycotting: Why it Matters

When I tell someone that I am boycotting something, I am met with eyes that will either roll or look at me like I have two heads.  It is hard to explain to some one why you boycott something.  It is like trying to tell someone why you don't like their friend.  I want to tell you a short story about the thought process I ride to get to this point.

Picture your best friend.  Think about how close you are and how much they mean to you.  Now imagine that someone is making fun of them.  This other person is tearing your friend down behind his/her back and to his/her face.  This other person is making up lies about your friend and telling a lot of other people.

Your friend can't fight back.  No one will listen.  They believe the other person's lies and start to have bad thoughts about your friend.  You see your friend hurting over this.

You used to be friends with this other person.  Do you still want to be friends?

Maybe you want to talk to this person about it and see why he/she is saying these things.  But they don't answer any of your questions directly.  Do you still brush it off?  Do you just admit that they are good at listening, and you won't give that up?  They have good parties, and you don't want to be uninvited?

No reason you have will be enough for your friend.

You are just one person, and your opinion may not directly matter.  But if you start to ignore the other person, others might follow.  If not, you don't have to put up with it.

That is how boycotting feels to me.  If a restaurant or company decides to heavily slam on something I care about, this is what I think.

I hope this made sense...

We Have Lived a Thousand Lives

You know that feeling when you finish a book?

The one where you can't figure out how the rest of the world is still moving.

Like, how can they not know the importance of what just happened at the conclusion or whatever it is at the time you look up?

Maybe someone died.  Maybe you're clutching the book to your chest or wanting to throw it across the room or both.  Maybe you've already put the book down and are contemplating it --already comparing it to your life.

Maybe, hopefully not, someone is there to witness it.  Maybe they said something to you about it.

“I don't know why you read if it makes you so sad.”

“You're acting like a completely different person.”

“It's just a book.”

Just.

A.

Book.

But, yes.  I do act like a different person.  I read because I refuse to be the same person throughout my life.  I require personal growth and discovery to be content.  Each book brings a new thought.  Every book is a new idea.  Every book is a new person, wrapped in pages.  Reading unwraps the person directly into your mind.  This person shows you things you never thought about before.

This person leaves a little bit of itself in you when the book is done.  You absorb the ideas and feelings.  Part of you becomes this person.

Part of you changes.

We all know the studies about how people who read a variety of genres and who read often are more open minded and reflective.  People who like to read can spend hours comparing the world we know to books.  We find bits of ourselves in everyone.  We can easily identify our faults.

We see ourselves equal to everyone.

Because we have been everyone.

And yet, we know there are some things people go through that we can never understand.

But we are different after every book.  We have changed.

We have lived a thousand lives.

Maximum Ride Forever **CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS**

I feel like I have been reading these books for my whole life.  I started the series when I was nine, when only the first two books had been released.  Since then, I remember waiting anxiously for every book after that to come out.  After eleven years, the book series that linked my sisters and me together, made its way into many of my quotes and jokes, and became the inspiration for quite a few of my essays is over -- forever.

This series feels like a good friend who was really interesting at first, then got boring, then came back and slapped me in the face.  But I loved every second.  These characters grew with me and influenced certain ways I thought.  "Pain is a message; hold all calls." was my mantra for a while, like Max.  I tried to blindfold myself to see if my hearing got better like Iggy.  During rough times, I thought if I stayed still long enough that I could disappear like Fang.  I never was able to hack computers, build bombs, or read minds, but the positive attitudes of the younger Flock was a good thing to remember.  Angel's "age is just a number" attitude, however sadistic, was still kind of cool.  The Flock teaches us to trust our instincts, think before we act (usually), and to take care of the people you love first.  While they can get quite soap-opera-y, it really is a great ride.

I can read this series over and over again and still feel the way I did the first time.  There are a lot of beautiful things that happened in this series.  There are a lot of things that make you appreciate the life you have and the people you love.  It also shows a good idea on the grey lines between good and evil. 

My husband witnessed the event of me reading this final installment.  With only minimal teasing about it being a "just a book", he did give me tissues, caffeine, and hugs throughout the whole thing.  I was expecting to hate this whole book.  For the first 90% of the book, I was right.  I was heartbroken, and I felt like everything was pointless.  I didn't understand why James Patterson felt the need to make me cry within 37 pages of the book.  Take note: I don't cry... Basically ever.

Nonetheless, I couldn't put it down.  In less than four hours (including several crying and food breaks), I had gone from anxious, to crying, to hopeful, to crying, to unbelieving, to being ripped apart and angry.  I ended the book fully content and satisfied.  Maybe that is kind of heartless given the certain Dylan circumstances, but if it came down to him or losing the whole Flock (like we previously believed), I will choose the flock.  I am perfectly happy seeing the original flock still together and alive.  Plus a few.

The book itself was a roller coaster that seemed like James Patterson was just trying to give you more reasons to hate him.  After the last few books, I wouldn't have been surprised if he didn't even give us a bone by bringing the Flock back.  I was so apprehensive with the way everything after the fourth book came out.  But, like most of the other reviews I have read, I am pleasantly surprised and so glad with the way this came out.  It wasn't a fairytale ending (please, don't tell me you expected that).  The world is still gone.  It is still a horrible future to be a part of.  But they are together.  That was really all I was hoping for.

After reflection, I feel like the book was a blur.  There was a lot of stuff happening.  I can't decide how much of it was just filler, but I am leaning towards not a lot.  It went so fast, and I feel like it needs to be reread just to see what I missed.  But I am not ready for that just yet.  It was a well put-together book that does answer a lot of questions (still raising many more).  Honestly, though, I think many of us will be too tired and brain overloaded to keep asking them.

I hope you give this book a shot, and that you end up in favor of the ending.

Enjoy the ride...

Inside Out of My Mind

I recently saw the new Disney Pixar movie Inside Out.  Expecting to love it, like most Disney and Pixar movies, I was not prepared for the emotions that accompanied this movie.

The movie starts inside a little girl named Riley's mind.  We first meet Joy, on of the emotions inside of Riley's Head Quarters.  Not long after, Sadness joins her.  For not very understood reasons, Sadness keeps pushing the button that makes Riley sad, with Joy trying to gently push her aside.  Throughout young Riley's life, more emotions join Joy and Sadness.  Disgust, Anger, and Fear all join in and help raise Riley up to have a mostly happy life.

In a turn of events, Riley is pulled across country to a new house and school.  While Joy mostly takes care to keep her happy and smiling for her parents, Sadness seems to have a problem keeping her hands off of Riley's old memories.  When she touches them, however, they turn blue, and the memory becomes sad in Riley's mind.

In the land of emotions, there are islands based on Riley's core memories.  Things like Friendship Island, Family Island, Hockey Island, Goofball Island, and Honesty Island.  These represent Riley's core values, and it isn't hard to start wondering what ours would be as the movie goes along.

When Joy and Sadness are suddenly swept away from HQ into long-term memory, Riley is at a new school and trying to introduce herself.  What she originally seems really excited about, she is now remembering as a sad time and is now sad, herself.  Left in a sad state, with no Joy around to make her smile, Riley is left to face the new move and her conflicting feelings of anger, fear, disgust, and the lingering sadness by herself.  She lashes out against her parents, but not in an uncommon way for preteens.  She hangs up on an old friend after hearing about the new girl on the hockey team.  She ends up losing all of her core values -- literally, we see them collapse as Joy and Sadness race to get back.  Near the end, we see Riley's control board start to turn dark.  The three remaining emotions realize they can't make her feel anything.  Riley is on a bus, numb.

Joy loses Sadness in long-term memory.  While wandering around, Joy replays a memory, realizing that sadness enveloped it in the first half.  Joy happened a few seconds later, making the memory happy, even though there was hurt behind it.  Joy realizes that the memory is happy because when Riley was sad, her family and friends came to support her.  This happiness outweighed the sadness.  Joy takes this knowledge with a new resolve to get both Sadness and herself back to HQ.  When both are back, they create an emotion of bittersweet as Riley cries into her parents, "I couldn't be your happy little girl."

Riley is not an abnormal preteen.  None of her emotions act too far away from what normal kids go through every day.  What is different about this movie, though, is we learn about the need for sadness and what it actually takes to make us happy.  From the beginning of the movie, we never really know why we get sad randomly.  Sadness shows up out of the blue and hits the button from birth.  Sadness touching old memories is like a change of personality.  Things that used to make us happy can looked back upon and be regretted or can remind someone of sadness lurking behind it.  This movie is not about depression, but it does point to it with a loud flashing arrow.  It shows that it is always close.

Joy gets swept away.  Suddenly, we don't know why we can't feel happy.  We don't know why we just feel sad or angry or afraid.  Maybe, we don't feel anything at all.  We can't be pulled back by ourselves.  Our core values are failing because we can't think of a reason to have them anymore.  Eventually, even anger loses out to numbness. 

We can't pull ourselves out alone.  That is such a huge theme in the movie.  We need support and love and hope.  What is wrong with this is that people don't usually know how to ask or how to give it.  A hug and an "It's going to be okay" sure won't fix everything.  But it is always nice to feel like everything is in good hands or under control.  This is one way to save someone from depression.

However, if your control board is black -- if there is no way to wake it up -- and you feel hopeless and pointless, someone telling you it is okay is not going to help.  At all.  Telling someone to just feel better isn't going to help.  Sometimes, our Joy doesn't make it back.  Sometimes, she is stuck in the forgotten land for the rest of our lives.  And it hurts.  And if anyone has found the solution to that, feel free to comment.  I would love to know.

So, to those people who know me and who either rolled their eyes or actually understood that I am not okay:  I am sorry I couldn't be your happy little girl.