#Instilled so much fear and anxiety in me about people in general concerning art and stories

[meat-pvppet]

May all those youtubers who made series where they just dissed beginner artists' ocs and labeled them as marysues a very i will find you

[pooma-unvolunteers]

Dr Sekar Seenivasan

Ministering.....

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Topic: What is mental conflict? Why educationists are concerned more about it? How it can be minimised.

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Education is that which reduces mental conflict and enhances self confidence.

Teachers and students are both involved in the process. Both should understand each other. Hence the discussion centered on both.

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¶ Participants: Ms. Leena Rai-UNV Leader, Mr. Nahid Raza, Mrs. Archna, Mrs. Sangeetha Tyagarajan, Mrs. Nikita Kothari, Dr. Balasubramanian, Pooma, Mrs. Phani, Mrs. Buvana

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• Mrs. Sangeetha Thyagarajan: Mental conflict is real. In this pandemic everyone is under several conflicts.

There IS NO RIGHT ANSWER OR RIGHT WAY in many of these conflicts. Teachers are learning that all that they thought was right, could actually be wrong. For example all these years teachers forced science and math are the most important subjects. BUT, we have a generation lacking in humane values, decency, respect and commitment. So, mental conflict is real. Answers to these and managing them might differ from person to person, be it student, teacher or parent.

Education has created more entally conflict and stress in the last 2 decades than actually instill knowledge and values in students.

• Mrs. ArchanaUNV: Education can’t evoke conflict- it is the people managing the system they can. Parents, management, teachers - preparing students for competition and very few are genuinely concerned about the well being and holistic growth of the children. That results in mental conflict. Teacher and teacher competing. Teacher and management - insecurities, fears, worries

Student and teacher - concepts, sYllabus, other competitions

Parents and students - oh! Just so many conflicts. Gadgets, communication, comparisons, etc

And many more.

• Mrs. Nikitha Kothari:How true!

True education evokes wisdom !.

Wisdom brings balance in mental peace. If it is balanced, their won't be any conflict.

• Dr. Sekar srinivasan: When we fix the matrix of examination and job oriented or comparative competition it will not lead to real education.

As you have rightly pointed out some forty years back even schooling was not that much tough and examination and marks stress was little. So fearless learning with basic values were available.

But with the modern outreach all-round changes are inevitable. Hence the topic significance of today's discussion.

Most of us think schools or institutional academic programme are education. Right from birth one starts learning from environment and from nature. This goes till last moment. Rig veda says enlightment comes from absolute learning without differences. Gita insists on pariprsna i.e., inquisitive questioning. Western philosophers like Aristotle and even Milton or Shakespeare insists on learning without doubts by questioning.

In learning fine arts when mechanical rote learning has minimum scope and bhavartha realisation becomes essential the learner should eschiew his ignorance by reducing conflicts.

Students, Students-students,teachers, teachers-teachers,students vs teachers and teachers vs students. Actually this is psychological approach to learning. The main sequence inlearning is to know what is right and what is wrong. To decide in what direction to proceed in solving a problem. Whether to accept or not. This is leading to creativity and innovation

• Ms. LeenaUNV: Out of the discussion only let me say one thing and later I will be back onto the valid points of discussion. Well, I think this mental conflict is coined on the context of manipulation in the form of webinars to be conducted(only for those who are indulged in such practices) nowadays where these people have created such an hype over it

Even if there is mental conflict I know and I am agreed but due to pandemic this term is used to convert it into publicity and to show that we too are doing something anyhow

Where Sekar sir is right that education bring confidence and peace instead of mental conflict. To filter out the the strong,steady and confident individuals who can bring changes and work wonders later. Let there be an inch of mental conflict and let the inner clarity comes out let the roots of deep understanding be more deep and strong and let the mind to be explorer. How can we expect the same uniform thinking uniform ideas and uniformity in action otherwise the stagnation would be there so for progress that mental conflict is a part. Even if it's between me and me or between you and me or in between us but the creativity is going to be result or the best of the efforts will emerge then

Conflict is as real as living a life. Conflicts are bound to happen whenever we come across a situation/discussion/opinion which our subconscious mind hasn’t stored in the memory through the past experiences.. confusions, dilemmas and conflicts happen then.

People looking for opportunities to conduct webinar’s are doing so because we don’t pay much attention to mental health even now. Covid and lockdown especially for school and colleges have opened up pandora of unemployment, confusions and insecurity.

People who have done practice of controlling the thoughts and have awareness can deal with mental conflicts- some people can’t. Just simply can’t and that leads to more complications resulting into anxiety, stress and depression.

Hence resolving conflicts - the art and science of it should be taught/learned and practiced by us all so that we can balance our emotional and mental Health.

• Mrs. Archana UNV: Not denying mam. There are many untrained people using webinar’s as platform to SELL out fears because they don’t have competence and competencies.

What I described is genuineness of requirement for Mental Health awareness and solutions.

The need is there let us all concentrate on that- like award selling events these webinar’s will also die down their own slow death.

• Mr. Nahid Raza: Schooling was tougher earlier. Board results used to be between 30 to 40%. Failures were more whereas today it is easy to pass that too with high percentile.

• Dr Sekar Seenivasan: Kindly don't mistake me for one example. Earlier in language learning you have to write in full a letter of the given topic.

But now you are only filling the blanks . That too out of seven choices you have to choose five and put them in order.

• Ms. LeenaUNV: Oh exploration in the subject is almost removed sir I am agreed. And where there is the need of mental conflict to come to the right answer or to express own views on certain topic is thus deleted. Without diversions we need more skimming of the topic with intrinsic and introgative analysis

• Mr. Nahid Raza: Earlier essential points were emphasized. Today everything has become essential. Hence confusion is too much.

Buvana: Absolutely right...what to do what not to do no clear picture in front of learners.

• Ms. Leena UNV: But subject experts at that time were subject experts now every other person with a degree calls himself or herself there subject master. I do remember when we were in the middle years of school our English teacher used to mark our articles with circles and correcting there and then with the right form of grammar. Imagine I still remember him rather we do remember our all subject teachers and especially those the language teachers all superb. More of the objective questions have increased the habit of non seriousness among students as students don't understand the concept but choose the best option out of 1-2-3 randomly

• Mrs. Phani: Parents role is very important to mould and nurture life values like compassion, truthfulness, humbleness, cooperation, family bondage and many more good virtues by simply making them 7nderstand the essence of Bhavathgeeta, where Sri krishna has given solution for all the problems that we create. Like 'What to do and what not to do no clear picture in front of learners' . We as educators have to completely orient our mind set of traditional inputs that we were giving to children.

• Pooma: When we hear the meaning of mental conflict, it is defined as ....Failure of adequate adjustment to the social environment is the cause of mental conflict.

One of the key funcrions of education is socialisation and its integration. Education and causes of mentak conflicts are no where connected directly. One could say how education serves in removing social conflicts, but not in mental conflict. The source of mental conflict is social setup and our coordination with it.

• Dr. Balasubramanian UNV: Our edcuation system and paretns should spend time and should teach thinking than conventional edcuation methodology and scoring marks. Even parents involve in forgery and sadly still seeing bribe amd donation for higher studies .

• Pooma: Again when we see the source of mental conflicts, they all are from family conflicts, relationship conflicts.....all are social roots. The best word which can replace mental conflict by internal conflict. Some solid reasons for internal conflict are...

• Lackness of faith, and its symptom is boasting self.

• Desires of flesh and its symptom is serving self..selfishness

• Unlawful deeds....symptoms are reatlessness

• Dr Sekar Seenivasan: In the higher levels of self realisation also conflict arises with the quest for body mind budhi and Atma. Further the link between the creator, creation also this evolves as a major setback. When the doubter doubts his own self as maaya where will the essence of doubt go? So only the highest form of our religions talks about kasta mounam. The upadesha goes like this. " sollaru summairu " speak not and be inert.

The ultimate Anandalahari can be realised only without conflicts

• Pooma: Hear to know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’ Breaking these certainly leads to inner conflicts.

• Dr Sekar Seenivasan: Educational psychological process also tells about the triangular relationship between experience, behaviour and mental processes. Emotions and thinking evolves out of conflicts

• Pooma: Nothing can cause for the conflict and nothing can minimize it...neither education nor knowledge or wisdom.

It is we, self, already programmed within what is right and wrong. What is good and what us not....

In order to discriminate right things from wrong, Is education required? Wisdom required?..

Some more points please:

We are not limited, believing that we are limited is what causes suffering from internal conflicts.

The highest, most important knowledge is self-knowledge, because it is the only permanent knowledge.

If a person does not seek this permanence, then of what value is intellectual knowledge. If this knowledge does not provide a lasting experience, what good is it? This is another cause for conflict.

Working for rewards results in an inferior form of work than does working to help, a more perfect attitude.

So even if we do good work but expect some reward in return, that work becomes inferior owing to our lesser intent.

The latent curriculum for attaining internal conflict.

¶ How to minimise internal conflict?

Solution:

One wonderful idea is, ‘do your best’ to do good. That is all a person needs to do. Success is in God’s hands — so just try your best, but do not try to make something happen. Otherwise, the ego gets in the way and proclaims itself; The Doer.

The value of doing your best, or stated another way, act out of love, removes fear and guilt of failure from the picture.

It freeds you from all conflicts and help us to rest in peace in here and here after.

• Dr. Balasubramanian UNV: Past - present - future. And past cannot be changed and future cannot expect what to drive, So do maximum workout today, if you repeat same like yesterday and perhaps tomoor is too like today , today repeats for conventional , since they keep on repeat past and today same like yesterday and tomoor mow won’t have a changes. So certainly do maximum effort in each and every minute given to us, Change today so easily tomoor shall change.

[rexylafemme]

i am just one small part of forever

i’ve been on this almost-secret trip back toward the center of myself. mostly in preparation for very large transformations to come in my life, things i’ve needed and wanted for a long time, for all my life. i’ve been motivated by the intention of seeking the actions and experiences that fit the greater patterns and cycles of my life & cycles of wider social, political, cultural shifts. what i/we need to move forward. it’s not a new trip, i’m just owning it out loud.

because there’s so much more to us and what we’re capable of than these bullshit systems, barriers, these realities we’ve created or have been complicit in maintaining. their limitations and violences are constructed. failures. there are always other options, other ways. the answer to the question of “how?” frequently feeling elusive. or change feeling hopeless, impossible. and, yet, everything changes all the time. shifts in consciousness happen all the time, sometimes even driven by a generative hopelessness. it’s about harnessing that power, being able to come together, do something with it. it feels so physical. as in, of physics. energetic. so all about bonding and force. that i feel a pull toward the destiny of revolution, collective love/rage, creation in my body, that it feels deeper than my body, deeper than psyche. that those are the essential things, the real driving forces, the real truths, the real imperatives. i can’t feel this clarity all the time. but that we’ve had it once, or we’ve had it before, i can feel it in my circuitry. or, we have it all the time in small ways, in fleeting moments. people come together all the time, people force cultural shifts, people create all the time, people learn, people fight back all the time, people build. always have & when you trace those lines through the threads of time, there’s this overwhelming rush—a feeling of empowerment and potential. a feeling to keep going. the clarified knowledge that scarcity is a lie. & if we weren’t powerful, they wouldn’t want us dead or broken. self-fulfilling prophesies aid in perceiving only what we expect to see. the world will speak to us in the language that we provide.

been thinking a lot about my contributions in relation to all of this, my responsibilities to myself, others, my communities. i’ve been reflecting on the ways my sense of vocation and obligation are totally informed by my own positionality, which of course, has everything to do with the privileges i do and don’t have. that i have a lot of work to do, a lot of learning. that i have to show up and also be shown up for. about giving and receiving support, resources. from each, to each.

thinking about how i’ve had a hard time prioritizing my own needs in the past, how i’ve been even ashamed to tend to my needs, or to ask for anything. thinking it was selfish. but that’s what i was taught to do. poor/working class/white/catholic/femininity. how i did, at times, surround myself with people who required that i sublimate myself. or who just didn’t care. how it all has everything to do with the aforementioned bullshit systems. including my family system. how scarcity and power informed it. as well as abundance, nurturing, sharing. how we pass along treasures and trash, back and forth, down the line. help!

part of the solution to meeting personal and collective needs being that practices of care  and healing are constellatory, not singular. how my own healing is its own line intersecting with all the entangled individual lines of healing that make up that massive rubberband ball of collective struggle. if spirit is manifest in individual parts that get to grow and evolve and understand independently, they render the whole infinitely greater in their reconciliation. let’s go!!!! #ready

i’ve been thinking about my talents, my skills, what i have. how to channel everything i’m good at, how to put everything to good use, how to expand on sharing and giving. all of it. that this is something i’ve always been concerned with. i’ve always been able to give outwardly. but giving to myself and receiving have always been a struggle. & that’s a big deal. getting into why is too deep, but ultimately i need to honor myself and what i have to offer; i need to be generous with myself. i think of how much i admire the people i care about, how much i wanna be the cheerleader to their lives, to support them and reflect how amazing they are back to them. and how i’m working on having that relationship with myself. how it’s so much about learning how to be your own friend. the ultimate task.

and what it means to be your own friend, to love yourself, is the same as what we should strive for with anyone else in our lives.  we need the courage to connect with ourselves—all our parts. we need to be cautious and patient with the process. to be willing to make mistakes, to be vulnerable. willing to be  understanding. willing to be radically and deeply honest. willing to look at things we don’t want to see. willing to work with aspects of ourselves we don’t like. willing to surrender, to give in. willing to be open. willing to stand up. willing to take risks. willing to receive criticism graciously. willing to part with judgment. willing to part with a lot of things. willing to accept loss & change. willing to accept joy & love & newness. all the things that come naturally to us before we learn otherwise & before we get hurt, defensive. that we must master these things with ourselves and with everyone.

time doesn’t heal wounds, we do.

it sounds cheesy, but the experience of feeling like you were made to do something can be so real. we delude ourselves into thinking that destiny is tied up with inevitability, when in reality, it’s all about choice.

in my interview at the neighborhood playhouse conservatory for acting, the executive director asked, “why do you want this?” “because i want to fall apart, i want to break myself open. i’ve wanted this so much for my whole life and i’m terrified. and that’s exactly why i need to do it. i’m dying to do it.””dying?!” she said, “that’s great!” 

i remember when i gave up on that dream, i remember when i got quiet, when i got small. listening to the wrong lessons: shrink, disappear, don’t move, don’t speak, don’t make waves, don’t love or own yourself. i turned inward and couldn’t stop reading, couldn’t’ stop writing. i was always writing. at times i couldn’t be alone enough, but i  was part of a big family in new york city where there is no such thing as alone, no such thing as privacy. so, i created a space of aloneness in public space: at school, at home, on the street. in myself. an interior world, an ongoing conversation. i was other people in that world, as i chose. characters from movies, tv shows, books. strong-willed femmes with storied pasts, flawed and reaching, or closed. madame rose and gypsy rose lee. it wasn’t escape, it was immersion. into parallel experiences of feeling: my own and those of characters i admired. this & writing saved my life. & music & drawing.

so much of my exploration of self lately is concerning itself with shame, fear, anxiety. all the ugly parts, all the broken feelings. and when i just allow myself the space to sit with what’s broken, it’s like the shards are puzzle pieces and i wind up putting shit together, tracing the feeling back in time to influences, tracing the influences to lineage. this tapestry of brokenness. and then i get overwhelmed, i get angry because the shame and fear are someone else’s, instilled in me and echoing through the tides of my life from the tides of other lives.  i find myself looking for the first moments i internalized them & realizing that’s the wrong question: when.

when i was a kid i spent my days listening to the same records, watching the same movies obsessively, gobbling guzzling and focused. learning every line, every gesture, every sigh. committing every sound to memory. & i sang & i danced wherever i went. & i dressed up, & i put on my mom and aunts’ makeup, i used to sit on the closed toilet mesmerized as i watched my uncles shave their faces. i used to also revel in the process of shaving legs. the foam and the pink razor and the pink cloth robe. and at age 5, someone let me outta their sight for 2 minutes, and i cut myself “shaving” my face, and on another occasion, i cut myself “shaving” my legs. & i did get in trouble, but also we all laughed about it. & i begged my aunts, uncles, cousins to pretend with me. & i was a freak, i was 7-years-old & obsessed with susan sarandon (from jackson heights, too!). pretending to be her character from bull durham. haha, so inappropriate and strange. i wanted to be an adult so bad & i was called old soul and wise. & my aunt, the movie buff/cinephile, would indulge me and watch all the movies with me. but i was a kid and some experiences were too much. the movies and otherwise.

but, too, i think about how my experiences, traumas even, give me a range of depth and feeling to work with when it comes to acting and art. that what was always so inspiring for me from film/theatre was that ability to create a space where people connect to each others’ feelings and experiences in this really palpable way. that invisible stuff: not just sight & sound, but another sense. that draws you into a life, or a projection of one. a friend of mine joked, “i don’t trust actors. don’t you have to be a sociopath to be one?” “no!! you need to be an empath, i think!” to genuinely engage with a character’s experiences and truthfully represent them. i think the form has so much revolutionary, transformative potential in that way. representation is powerful. to provoke people to feel is powerful. to provoke people to remember or know something they didn’t is powerful. it’s challenging, too.

and expanding on that, just… what viola davis said in her oscar acceptance speech:

there’s one place where all the people with the greatest potential are gathered and that’s the graveyard. people ask me all the time ‘ what kind of stories do you wanna tell, viola?’  and i say, ‘exhume those bodies. exhume those stories. the stories of the people who dreamed. big. and never saw those dreams to fruition. people who fell in love and lost. i became an artist, and thank god i did, because we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life.”

WATCH THE WHOLE SPEECH AND BE MOVED

and as surrounded as i’ve been in my own life by death, by loss, bullshit systems & all they reap in our constellated lives, as much time as i spend in the graveyard myself, i remember what always drew me back to creativity was that: life. wanting to hold onto it, wanting to know what it was all about, wanting to share it, to choose it, wanting to know people. being so alternately enchanted and horrified by what we were capable of— magic & havoc. the triangulation between, magic, havoc, intimacy. ugh, life. even tho we would come to lose it, life, and each other. 

i wonder what it means to want to connect to havoc, to want to represent it. but, sometimes we just want to play evil. i think that’s the fear in me. it’s what i’m afraid of, for sure: exposure, letting it out. driving the impulse to hide. but, then, the opposing desire: to be seen, to release. that impulse to show what you obscure, the snarling parts. the things you keep to yourself. your other powers.

i’ve been so attached to my shadows, i think, while not fully understanding where they were cast from. and how shadow is just a matter of perspective, what point you’re looking from. and nostalgia is a yearning for an old [sense of] home, the past, but when the sun’s ahead of you and you’re looking backward into night, all you see is shadow. blue. not that night isn’t beautiful in its way, or without its virtues. but it’s its own point of perspective, and it isn’t the only one.