smiti JAMILA

Thrive: What on Earth Will It Take

Watch here.

This documentary has a lot going for it. Its sources are fantastic. Its research is deep. Its message profound.

It also has a few things going for it that will certainly prevent certain individuals from seriously entertaining it:

(1) A Science Fiction Bent. Yes, it talks about aliens. It “goes there.” But it does so with an open mind to all possibilities, rather than the fanaticism we see on, say, Ancient Aliens, which would be entirely inappropriate. Are we so self-centered as a species that we can’t accept an honest discussion about extraterrestrial life? Even the Vatican has released a statement condoning a belief in aliens (no doubt in attempt to update the Catholic Church’s image with a scientific inevitability - their war against science is a losing battle).

(2) Cheesy Production. Its production is certainly challenging at first. The effects and music are an obvious deliberate attempt to add drama. But I think the intentions are pure, and we can be forgiving. I work in a creative industry, and I know from personal experience how a visual concept, in all its metaphorical and symbolic glory, can fall flat once executed. To this film’s credit, though, a sci-fi model does work thematically, when we consider the actual points it makes. After getting over my initial embarrassment (it’s our own embarrassment at watching something bad that gets us, right?), I rather liked it. The visuals are entirely effective.

(3) Idealism. This is the real doozy: The overall message is perhaps too grand for some to conceptualize, because it deals with a basic facet of human nature we have yet to reconcile with: whether we are inherently good or bad.

In attempting to discover what is wrong with the world, this film proposes that, if we can conquer these issues, the world that we will find ourselves in afterward will appear utopian by comparison. This probably looks like bullshit to many. We are taught to reject idealism from an early age - pretty much once our beliefs in Santa and the Easter Bunny are squashed. Darwin tells us that this world is the survival of the fittest, and the extension of that is the conclusion that human nature is inherently not good enough to allow us to coexist peacefully. But we need to remember that, although Darwin proposed a fantastic new model of evolution, his model alone is still not enough to fully explain the origins of man, specifically how our brain has developed. The more bones we unearth from the ashes of the earth, and the deeper we probe our own minds, the more perplexing our developmental history truly is. We aren’t taught these mysteries in grade school. Rather than experiencing Darwin as the theory it is, factional and vulnerable to criticism, it tends to be shoved down our throats as final, prevailing proof that God doesn’t exist and we live in a straight and linear world, one that doesn’t surprise us. And yet, if we actually took the time to research our own world more thoroughly, we would find that this world surprises us again and again, because we know so little about it.

What we do know is this: humans have an immense capacity for positive and negative emotions. We are just as capable of violence as we are love and compassion. Or are we? Because it seems to me like love and compassion are much stronger in most people than their darker sides, and not because of fear for retaliation; it is a pure and natural desire for happiness that creates positive emotions and actions. Whatever love is, it’s VERY real. Philosophers have contemplated whether it evolved as a mechanism of defense in a cruel world - mothers protect children, fathers protect families, extended families or villages protect each other. But this does not explain the compassion we feel for people who are completely unrelated and perhaps continents away from us; nor does it explain our compassion for animals, particularly those who, instinctively, we should fear. (Marilynne Robinson’s Absence of Mind has a great section on this topic) While many cynics try to suggest that without laws and an armed government, the people would crumble into anarchy and chaos, I only have to look around at my friends, neighbors and family to admit: No. We would continue functioning without assaulting, cheating, stealing and generally being bad people, because we are, inherently, “good people,” people who find happiness in human relationships that depend on honesty and goodwill. Conditioning is powerful stuff, but that would imply that all people would be destitute without the conditioning. We see love, compassion and immense cooperation amongst remote populations of people all over the world, many who have had zero contact with the Western world until recently. If they can cooperate and thrive in such primitive conditions, why can’t we? Why are we so selfish despite our many comforts?

We encounter examples of human selfishness on a regular basis - we are taught to believe that, living in Darwin’s world, we can’t escape our primitive need for “survival,” which has become a loose concept applying to anything we think we need, since everything can be boiled down to the basic level reproduction; money, power and all material things are our vain attempts to impress our mates and build our empires. Apparently, we are told, ALL humankind has behaved this way for ALL history. But this is simply not true. Science prefers simple explanations - the simpler the better. But simpler isn’t always true. Let’s analyze human behavior on a smaller scale. If it is in our nature to form a hierarchy, it would occur in all facets of our lives, including our “private” lives. What we find in looking closely at our private lives is a nation-wide movement spreading to REJECT such a hierarchy. What we find are women and homosexuals and interracial couples fighting for their rights to be not just “equal,” but more specifically, equal to the “norm” prescribed by our society. We also find more evidence that the “bad” behavior we see in others is often a side effect of some sort of mental disease, rather than a healthy dose of natural violence and aggression. Given the toxic environment we live in today, I suspect such diseases are proliferating, and that’s not a comment on human nature; it’s a sign of how unhealthy our planet is. It is our society - made up of government, media and business - that prescribes the norm, and it is the people who are fed up of having to choose between being ostracized or forced into submission. It appears that we instinctively wish to be equal with our partners, as equal as possible with our children, and equal with other citizens; we mostly desire to live in a cooperative way that promotes unlimited growth and accepts us for the people we truly are, because we know our true natures are no threat to anyone else. Regardless of what we are taught and what our stance is on world peace, we intuitively know that if we were allowed to live as we are without restriction or judgment, we wouldn’t hurt others.

If that is what we innately desire, what is stopping us? First of all, we are mere citizens. We do not make the laws. We vote, but we vote for preselected candidates in an election we have nothing to do with. In essence, we have no direct control over how our country is run. However, in numbers alone, we should, in theory, have the capacity to topple anything we want. We don’t, because we aren’t able to spread the message and mobilize enough of us to action. Not because the end goal doesn’t appeal to the vast majority of us; but because most of us have been successfully conditioned to believe that it’s not possible. That it’s ideal. That we as individuals are powerless. And that, in fact, is a topic discussed in the film - how our education and media train us to judge and fear anything outside of our status quo. I believe this is an inherent quality in all people to some degree - fear of the unknown has helped us to survive, but this fear is so primitive, and so based on a specific context (life or death) that we can overcome it - we have had to, in order to develop into such dramatically different beings than our apparent origins. But if this nature of ours is encouraged, nurtured, allowed to proliferate during our development, the conditioning can be difficult to shake.

And that appears to be the case. Ideals are just that - ideals. Ideals are for fools.

Never mind that the major innovators of our history were ridiculed in their time, just as we ridicule new ideas today. Never mind that the major social movements in the past century were considered idealistic in their time, but eventually succeeded.

Never mind that we accept vast changes in power, empires and lifestyles as the course of history in textbooks we read in school. Just as WE are on the verge of experiencing ourselves. IF we would accept that history continues.

The splicing of realms

On a boat there can be a cargo of wisdom. I’ve brought along some marvelous books. Samuel Adoquei’s “How Successful Artists Study” is an up-to-date, practical guide for the transition from art school to the professional world of art. In it he talks about the “Five worlds of artists”:

1.    The inner, personal world.
2.    The real and practical world.
3.    The outside, commercial world.
4.    The future, aspiring world
5.    The fantasy world of dreams.

Adoquei suggests budding artists need to get their worlds separated from one another. Mixing fantasy with practicality is a leaky proposition.

—Robert Genn

How I wonder: is this the source of humanity’s crisis? Could the universal consolidation of - in Adoquei’s language - our “worlds,” be the key to overcoming the challenges, sufferings, misfortunes and cruelties that plague our existence. What if we enable our higher selves to consistently function in all situations, for all purposes; let go of the facades, remove our masks. What if we crushed the stoicism only sought to protect us from our own projected fears.

I’m what many call an idealist.

But it is a gross underestimation of the human spirit to presume that progress is impossible just because only some seem capable of attaining, and not all. So also is it a mistake to label the hypothetical as impossible simply because it contradicts the status quo. All progress contradicts the status quo. That is how progress functions.

At one point in time, there was no Earth. And then there was Earth.

At one point in time, there were no organisms. And then there were organisms.

At one point in time, there were no humans. And then there were humans.

It is difficult for our brains to imagine evolution over long periods of time. Earth did not form in 1 singular moment; organisms did not spring into existence in a second, nor did humans suddenly emerge from the mist of mammals. And so, too, do ideas develop over time.

At one point in history, there was no controlled fire (let alone electricity, aircrafts underwater tunnels). There wasn’t even the notion. A cynic at the time may have called the fire-worshipers idealists.

There is nothing idealistic about the belief that anything imagined is possible. It’s a logical conclusion: if it can be thought, it can be conspired. And if it hasn’t been thought, who says it won’t?

We cannot begin to imagine the future.

But we can try.

The gray: a color choice for NYC’s cast of characters

When I first came to New York, it was not the city I remembered. Or, more accurately, it was not the city I thought I remembered. Throughout my childhood NYC was fed to me from media as if intravenously, and I longed for its light, lust and art as though it were in my blood, pumping my very own heart. But I quickly learned, once physically absorbed into the metropolis: this is no longer that tapestry-like weave of aristocrats and bums, businessmen and philosophers. Where are the premadonnas, the beatniks, punks, Millionares? As I searched the streets, clubs and cafes for the characters I thought I knew, I came to the painful realization that they had packed up, left or died.

In their place was an entire new cast who I came to know over the course of my stay:

1. Dime-a-dozen investors, always boasting unfounded arrogance and strewn with tacky naked chicks, often canoodling with their cousins, the
2. Dime-a-dozen bankers & brokers - sometimes less arrogant and tacky, but still as common
3. Clueless Europeans - they strut around SoHo and are stuck in the 1990s
4. Other Foreigners - this crowd changes little over time but is always increasing in numbers; they are slowly making what once was exotic food commonplace (e.g. the recent rise in popularity of Japanese and sushi)
5. Models & Actors - they are both everywhere and nowhere; in the ever-growing population, they are all too-often lost in a sea of increasingly well-groomed and attractive commoners (their height or defined eccentricities often saves them)
6. Wannabe Models & Actors - most of them serve us cocktails and eggs and sometimes with a sneer, but many of them have lost the attitude - they are beginning to realize the end might be near
7. Delusional, Pampered Students - paid for by their parents and accepted to prestigious universities in part because of their money; failing to see this equation, they think too highly of their intellect
8. “Hipsters” – young, tragically hip, insecure and in painful denial of their shallowness
9. Graceless Socialites – (one’s recent debut on an MTV reality show is the icing on that classless, overpriced cake)
10. Ever-expanding Upper East Side Suburbites - once enclosed by 5th and Park, stretching only from the upper 50s to low 70s, the first urban suburb is now bloated to 1st Ave and the upper 80s, teeming with the spoiled and self-righteously egotistical*¹
11. New Age Suburbites - in attempt to distinguish themselves from their eastern counterparts, many families settle in the Upper West Side and dress in decidedly inauthentic bohemian clothing and spend more for labeled organic foods
12. Trendy Families - they live downtown, try to teach their kids the evils of materialistic behavior but still pay for everything, and often engage in activities that bring them closer to nature, such as making homemade bread or growing vegetables on their rooftop
13. Bums and Addicts - still here, but more verbally aggressive and less likely to steal; some learn skill sets and try to wow us by rolling and diving down subway cars or singing a jingle, but most expect contributions for their laziness
14. The Unfortunates - these people used to populate the majority of Manhattan land but due to rising costs of living, their projects have been reduced in size and shoved to the corners and edges of the island (one conjectures if they will cease to exist on the island completely)
15. Too Cool for Manhattan - some people technically could afford to live in Manhattan but choose to reside in a Brooklyn brownstone to be “different” and edgy; some genuinely value the quiet and peace in this more spacious borough
16. Feigned Too Cool for Manhattan - these folks try to blend into the above crowd, but the fact is: they can’t afford Manhattan rent
17. The Leftovers - the uncommon college kids with authentic talent and debt up their ass; a washed-up photographer hiding out in the East Village banking on rent control; the aging but still zesty writers who survived the 70s and are still championing diversity, (etc)
18. The Same Fierce Old Ladies - thankfully some things never change

Give or take, these are the people I have come to know in New York, and they have forever changed its landscape. Or, perhaps the land that supports (but can’t nurture) and its habituating people change in unison, molding one another as two plates of stone grinding and chipping away at each other’s surface. I think I use such destructive language because my nostalgic self is still attached to the NYC I read about in books and saw in movies as a child, and although the landscape has positively morphed into a more safe and secure environment, I find that has come with a cost. While the streets might be smoother, the apartments cleaner and more conducive to middle class or upper middle class living, and the area complete with appealing restaurants and boutiques, I can’t help but look at the crowd and wonder: for all the amenities, are these people more or less colourful than their previous counterparts?

The mad rush to move into Manhattan that raised its property price tags overall in the latter half of the 20th century also paved the way for a new bourgeois living situation. Buildings and neighborhoods previously only suitable for the ruffian lifestyle of the young and reckless or positively destitute slowly improved in quality and livability at the hand of a large and inevitable housekeeper: the expanding city. A class of people from any middle to upper middle class background found a new refuge in the multitude of new respectable hoods: the Village, Tribeca, Financial District, Nolita, the bloated UES, Morningside Heights – the list could go on for quite a while. When I first arrived in the city I was still under the impression that a safe and affordable apartment was not an option for me; I quickly learned that although rent prices were still multiples of every other U.S. city, they were attainable.

Attainable, but the return at the low-end of the pricing margins is often cramped environs that prove no more than tolerable, suitable only in youth or for short-term. This seemed like a dismal waste of money to me. It also appeared dismal to everyone else in the City – stress pervaded the subway cars, the streets, the cab rides, the delis – to avoid it was to become intoxicated or try to go numb. Alcohol, drugs, and escapes of all kinds are the peacemakers in this overpopulated few square miles. But this method of controlling one’s sanity was never something I could condone: it always seemed unhealthy and virtually ineffective in the long term, seeing as it could only be an inevitable gateway to any number of additional problems: overexpenditure, illness, strife, arrest (for illegal drugs), avoidance. Numbness is not happiness, and so when I had my fill of the complaints and negative attitudes of pretty faced pill poppers, I decided to move.

Another revelation I experienced upon moving to NYC was that Brooklyn exists, and it is an interesting place. It was a new and seemingly good alternative to Manhattan living, so I jumped at an opportunity to reduce my rent almost in half and experience a different neighborhood. I confidently immersed myself in the up-and-coming, but still essentially disheveled, neighborhood of Bedford Stuyvesant. I would at once transform my statistic: from majority to minority, from low income to moderate. And, of course, I transformed overnight from Manhattanite to Brooklynite. It was a welcomed change, but I admittedly was slightly blinded. Immediately struck by the friendly and personable nature of the landlord and local vendors, I thought we were of a people in direct contrast to the brooding and selfish virus growing in the City. What I was forced to soon realize was that in moving from the UES to Bed-Stuy I was only exchanging one variety of misery for another, moving from the boredom and soullessness of the wealthy and settling amongst a race and class of people coming to terms with its history and still deeply troubled by lingering prejudices.

I am not sure if there is any “neighborhood” that I would find agreeable in this city, and I don’t think it is worth trying to find one. My continual migration throughout the city over the past five years has exposed me to various people and the intricacies of their psychology. As the pattern of packing and moving became apparent, I decided that although I longed for the simple satisfaction of finding “Home” and staying, I had a duty as a New Yorker to experience as much of my city’s local culture as possible.

Until now. Rather than seeing my city in black or white and attempting to leave the black for the white, or the white for the black, I will accept that neither exists: it is all gray. Now I am dead-set on finding Home, even amidst this gray atmosphere, and I am pretty sure I will find it. Home will be many things: affordable, full of natural light, spacious enough to house my belongings, comfortable enough to enable all of my pursuits, friendly to pets and convenient to all desired amenities. But the most important quality of Home, I now understand, will be much simpler: it will be the physical space that makes myself and my loved ones most happy.

Note:

1. I have personally known an exception to this character-type.

On: art

This water is like milk, rich and soft, coating my palms in gentle whiteness, airy and warm. It is truly a canvas and with the gentle sway of my fingers, I can provoke patterns, even images, like this dragon - tall and ornate, wise and unthreatening.

I look for art in everything, and I question the meaning of it as any artist and even self-proclaimed nonartist is wont to do - not for justification of existence, of specific acts, but for a deeper understanding of everything.

Why this form, face, that layer - I have to wonder why. I don’t think it is very complicated at all. My first instinct is to conjure a friend’s self-description: “I am a girl in love with the world.” Aren’t we all in love with ourselves, at least, and therefore in love with our self’s world? All of the specimens, forces, processes we experience are the definition of our distinct time and place; for reasons we are not completely aware of, we are here to witness them, to observe and reflect.

Even the bodies that house our being - or better yet, the forms through which our beings may access time and space - are fascinating to us. They are the highest form of art, our most proud creations, and our favorite subjects. We are truly moved by the capacity of our expressions and actions to speak volumes to our deepest feelings, even hint at our unconscious knowledge. As our own art subjects, we prove that beyond any element of narcissism, our souls exist on another circuit.

Conceptual art often fails to captivate me. It appears to be truly in vogue in this era and I think that may be an ode to our greater appreciation for the power of our dreams, our minds themselves - gateways to a higher consciousness. But to put such a web of ideas in image form appears at once fruitless. The Buddha supposedly questioned whether or not he could explain his enlightenment to others, and the gods immediately intervened to tell him, “yes.” His explanation comes to us in the form of most religions: a list of itemized truths. Words. I think that images as symbols contain a limited capacity, in that regard, to communicate what language has better evolved to do.

And so physical artists who manage to communicate in ways words cannot produce the most startling art. There are many skilled image producers; art is everywhere when you look for it, even good art. But great art is much harder to find.

Our art, our words - these are the modes of sharing our observations and epiphanies. When I tried to explain once to someone why I find them to be so sacred, I came to Joseph Campbell - certainly he provides one of the greatest definitions of what art represents to the human species.

Katharsis, he explains, is a ritual from Ancient Greece to purify “(‘…the community from the taints and poisons of the past year, the old contagion of sin and death’) which was the function of the festival and mystery play of the dismembered bull god, Dionysus. The meditating mind is united, in the mystery play, not with the body that is shown to die, but with the principle of continuous life, that for a time inhabited it, and for that time the reality clothed in the apparition (at once the sufferer and the secret cause), the substratum into which our selves dissolve when the ‘tragedy that breaks man’s face’ has split, shattered and dissolved our mortal frame.

“The death to the logic and the emotional commitments of our drama moment in the world of space and time, this recognition of, and shift of our emphasis to, the universal life that throbs and celebrates its victory in the very kiss of our own annihilation, this amor fati, ‘love of fate’, love with the fate that is inevitably death, constitutes the experience of the tragic art: therein lies the joy of it, the redeeming ecstasy.”

That our path, or fate, is sealed is our challenge to learn what for : our task to illuminate whatever truth in life and its end is quite plain to us.

“All things are changing; nothing dies,” says the Bhagavad Gita. “The spirit wanders, comes now here, now there, and occupies whatever frame it pleases…” I think “pleases” is language that would ring today in tones of hedonism, perhaps even suggest a nonchalance to the whole process. I doubt this is the intended meaning. “Pleasure” is not just the gratifaction of senses physical - the satisfaction of a perfectly crisped, succulent medium rare meat, a delicate pastry, or even the sweetest orgasm. Pleasure is also the soul’s ease and happiness; harmony is achieved through the informed selection of life and modes of living.

And life isn’t limited to human existence. We can observe countless and often complex life in other creatures on earth. That the self should choose only a human form seems at once limiting. Surely all living forms offer a unique perspective of the world. To enter each one is to allow the soul a richer knowledge. Even those who lament their life, their situation - seemingly brought on not by their own will - are learning and experiencing another example of life. If suffering exists, it is no question that it must be experienced. And if suffering can be absolved, it is a question of why one chooses to allow or disallow their own katharsis.

The delicate balance between happiness and sadness, comedy and misery - this is the necessary tension that inspires our art to inquiry, speculation and celebration.

On: status

sta·tus
Pronunciation: \ˈstā-təs, ˈsta-\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural sta·tus·es
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Latin — more at state
Date: circa 1630

1 a: position or rank in relation to others <the status of a father> b: relative rank in a hierarchy of prestige; especially: high prestige

What I find most interesting about people who pursue status—via popularity or monetary success—is that they never appear to question the meaning of their life’s chosen hallmark. Their pursuit of high status rests on a foundation of no greater depth than a veil of assumptions. These often include:

1. Popularity is good or a symbol of something good.
2. Money is good or a symbol of something good.
3. Popular people are more important and/or better than those who are not.
4. Wealthy people are more important and/or better than those who are not.
5. High status = power, a power that is desirable and good.
6. High status = happiness.

That there are people in the world who are well-known, have money, are powerful and are also bad people, and/or are miserable, is not considered, let alone the actual implications of these statements. But many a status-pursuer follows this faulty logic, which leads me to believe, more and more, in a hunch I have always had about money: that money exists only to govern and economize the earth’s, and our resources; and without it, our baser natures would be exposed in a bloodbath not unlike the wars our not-so-far-off ancestors waged over land, water and women.

Land, water, women.

Are the pursuits of ancient man to survive—via the shelter of land, the nourishment of its flora and fauna, and the access to females—all that different from those pursuits of man today? Are not the very symbols of high status no more than carefully costumed relics of ancient times? And are not the wars that still plague humanity mere shadows of the very same, animalistic fight for land, for water and females? We may use the earth and value its resources differently than before, but our purposes remain the same.

The origins of the term itself offer a helpful clue to its meaning. Status appears in the English language around 1630—almost thirty years after the death of Queen Elizabeth, a period of time during which an unadmired King James was attempted to be assassinated several times, and just a decade before the Civil War. The Civil War began with conflicts between James’ son, Charles I and Parliamant; it ended with the restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660. In the 60-odd years during which Elizabeth died and her successors scrambled and fought over the throne, we see a curious shifting of power. Elizabeth ended an era, one marked by a truly revolutionary symbol that England had never experienced: a female powerhouse. In the wake of any monarch’s death is a potential period of unrest, as the balance of power must be swiftly restored with a newly purported ruler or chaos might ensue. Her successor was not suitable to the task, nor his son, and monarchy temporarily crumbled from ill-fitted hands. This is the plight of monarchy, of the absolute consolidation of status and power into one individual: to raise the one and so reduce the many, potentially enraging the masses under such an obviously unjust judgment.

Status is the fruit of monarchy, of a government system modeled after a power structure that emerged during Europe’s recessive Dark Ages, a time when the wealthy took advantage of the poor and manipulated the teachings of Jesus Christ to justify their right to be kings.

On: industrialized pigs

I’m glad the pigs get their revenge

…even if they aren’t conscious of it. They are, after all, deemed amongst the most intelligent creatures on earth. To their misery, many of them waste away in industrial food camps, enduring conditions that contradict what I find to be an important facet of the food chain: if your meat is not fresh and from a full and happy body, it cannot be terribly good for you.

“Approximately 100 million pigs are raised and slaughtered in the U.S. every year. As babies, they are subjected to painful mutilations without anesthesia or pain relievers. The piglets’ tails are cut off to minimize tail biting, an aberrant behavior which occurs when these highly intelligent animals are kept in deprived factory farm environments. In addition, notches are taken out of the piglets’ ears for identification….

“Numerous research studies conducted over the last 25 years have pointed to physical and psychological maladies experienced by sows in confinement. The unnatural flooring and lack of exercise causes obesity and crippling leg disorders, while the deprived environment results in neurotic coping behaviors such as bar biting, dog sitting, and “mourning”….

“After giving birth and nursing their young for two to three weeks, the piglets are taken away to be fattened, and the sow is re-impregnated. Hog factories strive to keep their sows ‘100 % active’, as an article in Successful Farming explains, “Any sow that is not gestating, lactating or within seven days post weaning is non-active.” When the sow is no longer deemed a productive breeder, she is sent to slaughter….

“Prior to being hung upside down by their back legs and bled to death at the slaughterhouse, pigs are supposed to be ‘stunned’ and rendered unconscious. However, ‘stunning’ is terribly imprecise, and this results in conscious animals hanging upside down, kicking and struggling, while a slaughterhouse worker tries to ‘stick’ them in the neck with a knife. If the worker is unsuccessful, the pig will be carried to the next station on the slaughterhouse assembly line, the scalding tank, where he/she will be boiled alive.”

But bacon’s so good….right?

Points in summary of The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, taken from “Understanding ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma’” Facebook Group.

On: omnivores and the natural order of things

Assumption: Since humans have always eaten animals, maybe that is just the natural order of things.

Truth: Actually, like those of most herbivores, almost all our teeth are flat and blunt, including our incisors. As the renowned anthropologist Dr. Richard Leakey says, “You can’t tear flesh by hand, you can’t tear hide by hand…. We wouldn’t have been able to deal with food sources that required those large canines.” Our hands are rather good for grabbing and picking fruits and vegetables though! And also, like the intestines of other herbivores, ours are very long (carnivores have short intestines so they can quickly rid of all that rotting flesh they eat). We don’t have sharp claws to seize and hold down prey…. We may be omnivores in that we can survive on just about anything, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t think about making food choices that are responsible, kind, and healthy….

“The point is, thousands of years ago, when we were hunter-gatherers, we may have needed a bit of meat in our diets in times of scarcity, but we don’t need it now. William C. Roberts, M.D., editor of the American Journal of Cardiology, says “Although we think we are, and act as if we are, human beings are not natural carnivores. When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us, because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings, who are natural herbivores.”

—Kathy Freston, Quantum Wellness p. 122

“She wanted to be loved. And I guess she thought that if she was a movie star, she would be loved.”

Everyone loves Marilyn. Children, adolescents, adults and the elderly all revere this woman and there are some obvious reasons why: she was undeniably charming, both innocent and sexy, beautiful, funny and famous. But her death, to me, is not shrouded in mystery because the facts aren’t lining up, or because her end was laden with conspiracy. An unexpected, “tragic” and “mysterious” death is truly part of her legend; only recently a few venturous writers and researchers have attempted to sift through what records remain to understand who this woman was, and why she died. I think why and how she died is the very reason for the imposed “mystery” in the first place; to label her death as such is a method of distraction from a very disturbing fact: that this was an unhappy woman, that beauty and success was not the sum of her soul, and that she wanted desperately for something she could not find in the living world.

Left: Monroe by Stern in June 1962; Right: Lohan by Stern February 2008

We feel sorry for Marilyn, and so we love her, so much so that we forget why. It is one of the highest compliments for a young starlet to be compared to her. Lindsay Lohan was ecstatic to be the model to recreate her famous last nude photoshoot with Bert Stern for New York magazine. (Her mother was equally ecstatic and brought along her other daughter and Lindsay’s younger sister to watch and presumably “learn”.) On her reality show, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Kim Kardashian explains that, although she was hesitant at first to pose nude for Playboy, when she learned that Marilyn Monroe did the first-ever celebrity and premier issue, she was convinced it would be a good decision. (If the show is any true snapshot of reality, what Hef failed to mention to Kim was that Marilyn didn’t pose for the magazine, but for photographer Tom Kelley, 3 years earlier. She only received $50 for the shots and Playboy published them in 1952.) Paris Hilton reveals in her Paris, Not France documentary that her workaholic schedule deprives her of sleepy time such that she will doze off during hair and makeup, and that someone once informed her that Marilyn Monroe did the same thing. This anecdote is shared with a sense of pride, the same quality with which all other young and beautiful tarts gush about the late legend. To be famous like Marilyn, to be beautiful like Marilyn, to speak in a baby voice like Marilyn, to be Marilyn!

Left: Monroe, December 1952; Right: Kardashian, December 2007

But, to truly be like Marilyn, what about popping pills and champagne like Marilyn? Feeling depressed and lonely like Marilyn? Being an orphan, a victim of child and sexual abuse like Marilyn? Coming to work late like Marilyn? Or how about not showing up at all? It is an aspiration that, I fear, is no different than the suspicion quoted above, that Marilyn “wanted to be loved…. she thought that if she was a movie star, she would be loved.” Modern starlets equate Marilyn qualities to her likeability, but, like the majority of Marilyn worshippers, they don’t consider the comparison much deeper. To be like Marilyn is to be loved like Marilyn. But to be like Marilyn also is to suffer, and that isn’t exactly an equation for success. It might just be one of doom.

The fate of Lohan may be all the proof we need. But she is oh-so-obvious. She was chosen for the photoshoot because Stern witnessed a struggle in the young actress, one that reminded him of his first subject.

But for a more interesting comparison, let’s take Paris. She translates most seamlessly to a modern Marilyn due to the fact she banks on the very same persona that was created when Norma Jean was renamed Marilyn Monroe. “The dumb blonde.” Paris and her close friends confess that in person and in “real life,” whenever that is, she is quite different than what everyone else sees. But, her sister Nicky complains, there has to be a time to stop. She worries that Paris loses track of herself in her dumb blonde charade, continuing her act of delightful vacancy in moments when she should instead be acting herself. That is, no doubt, the problem Marilyn battled every day before choosing to exit this world: she was slowly becoming her character, partly because it was what people expected and adored, mainly because it was who she thought she should be. But for such a troubled, lonely girl, losing herself to a character was losing her original wish: her character was loved, not her true self. And that - her own identity - is what she longed for most; self love was what she needed.

Left: Monroe after perhaps a glass of champagne; Right: Paris supposedly too drunk to walk

There is such a back-and-forth debate, a wide expression of both love and hate for Paris. She most likely wishes she could be loved unanimously as Marilyn. But, she and her corporate team fail to realize, Marilyn was loved then and loved now for very relative and specific reasons. In her heyday, she was the epitome of sensuality when a pop culture “sex symbol” was both new and exciting. Her appeal was not for young girls and teenyboppers; her fans were largely men and, to everyone’s surprise, adult women who found her personality both charming and childlike, even enigmatic. No doubt, these female fans unconsciously were drawn to a fellow woman-in-need. They sensed her pain without knowing. And in her wake, it is her struggle that attracts us most; we are almost blindly drawn to her memory, often unaware of why but certain it is most profound.

Unfortunately for Paris, porn stars and overexposure of the female body have perverted our senses to any so-called sex symbol, setting up unfair and often hypocritical boundaries between “sexy” and “slutty.” And even if Paris committed suicide or was ousted in an accident or plot, her time on earth has been too controversial and too uninspiring for the making of a legend as positively loved and cherished as Marilyn’s. Certainly some Paris-haters out there would soften as the news of her death would remind them of their own mortal frames, but surely the poll results are obvious: she does not captivate adults as her role model once did. Her spirit does not speak to us; she fails to draw us in and sparkle with that angelic light Marilyn so naturally emitted. She appeals mostly to young girls and a large Japanese fan-base with the promise of material happiness, things shiny and pink. Sure, she makes public statements crafted to sound humble and innocent. But they are tired and seemingly untrue, especially when the sarcasm and nonchalance leak through. Her documentary aims to reveal the true Paris, so as to let the world know that she is smarter than she seems, that she is highly self-aware and takes her job - whatever we might call it - seriously, and that her life is not by any standard a fairytale. Those truths are shared to gain our sympathy and respect, but they do quite the opposite. It was so much easier to digest Paris as dumb. But instead, she is a greedy liar. It’s as if she has no soul.

The difference between the two women has nothing to do with their intellect. As far as anyone can tell, judging as best as possible through the dumb blonde personality they both put forth, one was as smart as the other is now. Their disparity lies in the source itself for the persona. We see that Paris is very conscious and very willing to lie to the world. It is her method of earning a living, a living she proudly proclaims she has created all on her own, without help from her parents or trust fund. But the problem we have with Paris is not whether or not she works or works hard. We despise that for all that work and all that money she is doing nothing difficult or useful to society as a whole. Taking photos and hawking merchandise is shallow, narcissistic and selfish. Her dumb blonde persona is nothing new; she is both copying Marilyn and trivializing what was a much more complex and psychological character in its original form. Marilyn did not become “dumb” and “blonde” just because she thought it would make her money; in fact, she was recorded saying she had no interest in money whatsoever. She “just wanted to be wonderful.” She wanted to shine, she wanted her moment. She wanted a pat on the head, or even the bum, and being as beautiful and inoffensive as possible, by 1950s standards, was the means to achieve this. And she didn’t want it because she was selfish. She needed it. She hurt. That, above all things, is most clear.

But we live in a different world now, one in which women who have nothing to offer but good looks are chastised. Housewives and pop tarts alike make us cringe; lawyers and doctors are the heroes we want our daughters to look up to. If a hotel heiress were an option, she would have to devote herself seriously to something more than posing in designer clothes and starring in reality television. And, most importantly, she should not feed off the Marilyn persona, not even if she experienced the same troubled childhood or yearn for love and affection. Which reminds us: what about Lohan, then? Her drug and sex addiction is certainly reminiscent of the secret life of Marilyn, and her family seems fucked up enough to cause any level of psychological damage. But Lohan fails to truly channel Marilyn because her “suffering” looks more like acting out; it translates to us as immaturity. Lohan hasn’t learned from Marilyn and the many other examples of Hollywood train-wrecks, and for that, she cannot earn our sympathy.

What we want to see, what we secretly crave, is to witness Marilyn reborn but avenged; to witness her counterpart rise from the ashes and heal herself, reign victorious over the circumstantial and societal chains that held her true heart captive. We don’t want just another dumb blonde. We want the original, and we want her to become smart, to be natural, and, please god, to be finally happy.