MISSING: Chapter 8

MISSING

Chapter 8: Wenn Es Muss Sein!

She hates herself. She truly believes that she is unequal to everyone else. She is envious of everyone and everything. She would rather be the hairbrush of one of her classmates than to be herself. This perverse inclination towards self-hate and self-destruction defies almost all of the presumptions above.

If I hate myself than I am not equal to you. If I am not equal to you, then all individuals cannot be equal.

If I am unequal to all others, people will not like me as well as others.

If I am unequal to all others, but make an attempt to appear equal to all others, people will probably like me more than if I made no attempt to hide my inequality.

If I am unequal to all others, I will be inherently unlike, unfamiliar, and unattractive to all others, and people will feel uncomfortable around me.

If I am unequal to all others and unlike all others, then inherently I cannot affirm the self of all others completely. If I am unequal to all others, I can only affirm my self. People may inherently consider me selfish for affirming my self as opposed to their self.

People take offense to selfishness because it proposes that one individual is unequal to all others. People feel more comfortable with equality (see #4).

All people are egocentric. All people are rooted in the unique perspective of being their self. Aha! So if I am different, then by affirming my self I can affirm the part in all individuals that are different from all individuals.

There can be many truths.

What can be true for one person may not be true for another person; this is due to the power of perspective. The null hypothesis here concludes that what can be true for one person – I am unequal to all others – may not be true for another person. 

Herein lies the danger of drifting too far away from the mean perspective on individuality.

Altruism is egocentric and rooted in the perspective that all people are equal and that all people have equal probability of finding any fate. One person has a statistically equal chance of being any one person with any one fate. 

If any given fate that befalls one individual could just as easily befall onto another individual, AND if I believe that I am unequal to others, I may believe that I have a statistical bias for receiving a certain fate. 

If I am unequal to all others I can believe my fate to be unequal to all others'. If I am unequal to all others while all others are equal to everyone else, then I am an outsider. 

If I do not want to be an outsider, than this is unfair that I was born into a life in which despair is my situation. If I do not want to be unequal and yet I am unequal to all others – for better or worse – my situation will be despair.

If altruism is based on the assumption that all individuals are equal, and all individuals have a statistically equal chance of befalling one fate, then I have no reason to be altruistic to anyone but myself if my fate is lesser or worse or unequal to others'. 

In a given situation, I will allow myself to think, “Woe is me. I physically attract doom and ill will. Therefore I am best – and all are best – if I invest all of my efforts into myself only.

And thus one individual closes out all others, believing the own self to be unequal to all other selves. And all other selves are warranted to begrudge the individual who believes the specific individual self to be worthy of salvation from all other selves. 

All other individuals may continue to believe that all individuals are equal, and so all individuals will continue to be equal in 99% of all instances in the universe. Thus our individual who believes him or herself to be unequal of all others commits a fraudulence of universal proportions. 

The individual who believes it’s specific self to be unequal to all other individuals' creates a truth where no truth previously existed. 

The individual creates a truth from a different truth. 

The individual creates a lie. 

The individual is cosmically dishonest. 

The individual is sin, or is the individual misinterpreted?

***

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D. writes of a schizophrenic brother, “I [want] to understand why I [can] take my dreams and connect them to reality and make my dreams come true. What [is] different about my brother’s brain such that he [cannot] connect his dreams to a common reality and they instead become delusions?” (My Stroke of Insight: A brain scientist’s personal journey, 2006, Viking Press, New York, NY).

MISSING: Chapter 5

MISSING
Chapter 5: The Girl Without A Chance

The girl without a chance materialized in 5th grade: scrappy like Di, but not blond. She enters on somewhat even ground. She is nice. She is quiet at first and then stronger, but attracts the attention of one of the more popular new boys. She comes in 5th grade because 5th grade is when The Academy of the holy trinity admits approximately 20 new students, expanding the class size to upwards of 50. She is not pegged as the new girl in any identifiable way. She plays soccer, but not with Anner and Rory and Lexa. She knows Lexa – I hear their parents are members of the same suburban fitness club, along with the Campbells. She knows the class pagliaccio femminile, clown: Paige, from kindergarten. Paige, whose bowl-hair cut lines her as an ally to the boys in games like tag; our pagliaccio has no affinity for romance or affection, but who declines an opportunity to affect a social status, even one’s own? Paige calls the new girl and offers to sit next to her at lunch on the first day of school. She has no malice. She does not manipulate. She has no mal-intent. She introduces the new girl like something she won over the summer.

The girl without a chance starts with one chance: she has the fortune to be paired with Di as her “buddy.” On the first day of school she is dropped off early and timidly finds the principal’s office. She is shuffled into the Old Gym for an assembly. She is shuffled up to a top section of the bleachers where she is seated near others her age. She is handed off to Mrs. Fraanzen who will be her homeroom teacher. Mrs. Fraanzen gestures that the children in this section are her classmates. After a long assembly, the children are herded into a room with green carpet where Mrs. Fraanzen introduces herself. The class will end in a few short minutes, so they will begin tomorrow with introductions. They will copy the instructions written on the board down into their assignment notebooks and when the bell rings they may find their next class.

Thank GOD she decides not to wear the uniform jumper she set out! Such a tragedy would be her fate while – sitting in the commotion of just-minutes-before-the-bell she overhears girls celebrate their freedom from the lower school commandment that prevents girls from wearing pants. A glance around the room reveals a couple of timid smart-looking girls wearing skirts. No jumpers. The girls who look the most confident and comfortable wear pants. Ugly, unflattering, unfashionable pants, she sighs.

Muss es sein?

MISSING: Chapter 2

MISSING
Chapter 2: HICCUP

In the social scene at the Academy of the Holy Trinity for Boys and Girls, Diana Silverling is best equipped. Her preparations do not collaborate until high school – arguably the most favorable time for popularity to flower in a given individual. Di is never really ostracized – a rare individual to pass from grade school through adolescence almost completely untouched by that parasite, malevolence, that feeds on most youth.

Di is a “lifer” at the Academy of the Holy Trinity for Boys and Girls. A scrappy blond, she does not come into her beauty – or bust – until she piques high school. However, children are not so transfixed by outward appearances as their elders are. Di has always been nice and plays well with others. Her hair casts her the coveted role of Princess or otherwise heroine. In middle school boys like her. She is not the fierce queen of the middle school playground – who has boobs and an elusive best friend with 2 first names and bigger boobs, and access to cigarettes. However, the fierce queen of the middle school playground is remarkably savvy in social politics; she keeps Di as a secure second-hand. The Queen protects the throne viciously and pulls Di up: Rapunzel. Di does not have to fight for any claim; the work is done for her.

The classmates overthrow the queen and crown Di because she is nice, and because she is already very near to the correct location for a queen to be, at the top of the hill. Mrs. Carol Silverling is glad to play the position through Di. Brush your hair a bit; don’t you see all the boys looking at Di. Di has play dates with the Courtlings, and the Silverlings sit next to the Trentons at church. Carol fabricates a carpool with the principal’s son so she can not drive twice a week. Di is always entrusted into a good family’s care when Mr. and Mrs. Silverling fly to San-Somewhere for a getaway. She tells Di, “hold on. Just hold on.”

Little Anna Campbell does not have blond hair. Her family moves from Belgium when she is four. This small ornament always adorns her. Her mother says, “hello lovey,” and sings, “Anner,” when boys call for her on the telle. Anner knows words like torchlight and lolli. She can win affection by reverting back to “the bubbler” or “the lou.” She carves herself out as a cute young thing. She falls – for a short while in Middle School – when her class schedule aligns her with the second-rate group of girls and boys. She cares too much about others. But Anner plays soccer for the local team; this opens a secret COURSE/MEANS OF ACCESS for Anner. Her father coaches the team and she can set play dates and car pools with the other girls. Mrs. Campbell always bakes crispies for after the game. She keeps Anner’s water bottle cooled with ice. In high school Di joins the soccer team.

Rory Goodchild is a bit too beautiful to completely shine in her surroundings. Beauty can turn a double edge in the delicate game of girlhood. Beauty wins affection with boys, which can increase social standings. In social politics all things matter; which boys call you amorous matters immensely. An element of awareness towards competition also matters. The Queen keeps Rory close. Di keeps Rory close. Anner keeps Rory close. Rory is too beautiful to find her way to the top. She is also too beautiful to fight her way there. Rory stays always an arm’s length away from the top of the hill. Her mother expects her to keep her room tidy, and mow the lawn weekly. Rory barely protests, and almost never contests in public. “Why even bother inviting her over after soccer – she probably has got her laundry still to do.”

Alexia Lamont; Lexa, Di’s confidante. Not so much skimpy as she is lithe: a fashionable trait for any middle school girl. Lexa is good at soccer and her sister is best friends with one of the popular boys’ sisters – this is very fortunate. Lexa is friends with one of the popular boys! She doesn’t even care. She doesn’t need to care. Di chooses Lexa to keep company with her at the top. Mrs. Silverling probably actually inspires the choice – Lexa is a very likely candidate. A perfect means: sleepovers; carpools; “Di should join Lexa’s soccer team!” “Diana, join Lexa’s soccer team!” Mrs. Silverling talks with Anner’s Dad. She volunteers to drive the girls – Rory, Anner, Lexa, and Di to soccer after school. She bakes cookies that vie with Mrs. Campbell’s crispies– the girls are tiring of Mrs. Campbell’s crispies anyway. Mrs. Campbell would step down, if not for Anner’s continual prompting.
***
Many years later, a mother recognizes that all of the girls must have suffered at least a small wound of envy, for wanting to be Di, or for wanting to have Di & Lexa.
How many girls have this story; Diana Silverling does not because her father is an alcoholic. Lexa knows because Di needs someone to tell her emotional processing-s to. She needs to elect someone eligible for vacation trips where he might come home drunk. Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. Goodchild probably don’t want their daughters to know anyway. Neither princess has the capacity to help manage such a twist.
Circumstances pair Anner and Rory together after Di pulls Lexa up to the top of the hill.