obama fever

i have had the worst week in months, but I feel like I'm finally coming out of this black cancer of a brain. i found out that i wasn't accepted into that NYCTF program and even though i had already made up my mind that i wouldn't be pursuing it, i fell into a dark, familiar hole of self-doubt and fear of incompetence/failure. i suppose you want to know what helped to get me out of it? it was actually reading Obama's first book, Dreams from My Father.

in it, he grapples with the stratified self, the lack of identity that we all seem to be suffering from in this new collage of existence. he so eloquently describes his emotional journey to know himself with such captivating detail that i feel inspired to try to describe my own. to take responsibility for my life and for all the elements that came together to make me. the incongruence of my experience, the joys, the sorrows, the maddening injustices, the legacies of my father and my mother and their families. all of it comes together to give me the basis on which my values are formed. but to get lost in those experiences, to be afraid to live, to be consumed by fear and pain--that can only be my tragedy. i can decide to move beyond these trappings of the human condition and discover how i can be useful to others.

i had hoped that i would see a non-white president, a female president, an "other" president in the white house, but i never dreamed that i would connect so deeply with a president. that he would be able to so accurately touch upon the fundamental aspects of my character. that he would call on me to be a less-selfish individual, to break free of the trap of logic and reason.

when i talk about Obama with friends and family, i typically hear: "well, that talk of hope is another form of rhetoric. let's see what he will actually do" or "i doubt he'll be able to even scratch the surface of all the problems we're facing as a nation." at this point in the conversation, i ask if they have read either of his two books, and the answer has invariably been "no." two things bother me about this: i'm not sure how they can make such casual claims without doing any research, and they can't seem to see all of the change he's already accomplished.

dreams from my father image