Whose rules?

You may have seen this on Facebook, especially if you get news feed from Miss Representation.  A blogger by the great moniker of Militant Baker wrote a letter to Mike Jeffries, the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch, about her own campaign, "Attractive and Fat".  Accompanying the letter were photos of the militant baker herself and a gorgeous, Fitch-type model.

She writes that she had these pictures taken, not to prove that she has sex appeal worthy of attracting male models or to prove that she is photogenic (which she is) but for the express purpose to "challenge the separation of attractive and fat, and I assert that they are compatible regardless of what you believe."  MB is challenging Mr. Jeffries' attempt to make his own rules concerning the governing of his own company, because these rules of what is beautiful and what is not can be hurtful and damaging, especially to the self-image of the young.

However, in one of the fetching photos of MB, we can see the tattoos she has on her thighs, just above the knees: on her right leg, "My life"; on her left leg, "My rules".




Photography: Liora K Photography

I think it begs the question, which happens to plague the rest of society, whose rules win?  Militant Baker wants to live her life by her rules.  Ironically, this is how Mike Jeffries wants to run his company.  This how many folks wish they could live their lives but do not have the resources, thus, others are calling the shots, as in, the poor vs. the U.S. Congress, for example.

Our lives and the rules by which we live them affect countless other people, which seems to be the point MB is making to Mr. Jeffries.  My life is joined to your life and all lives by the actions and decisions I make, the attitudes and beliefs I hold.  This is why we make covenants, not only with God but also with each other--to hold the most important actions, decisions, attitudes and beliefs in common, because they affect the community as a whole.  For example, Abrahamic religions hold the ten commandments and the golden rule in common, the latter universal to most of the world's religions.

As a species, we have never really been able to afford the attitude of "My life, my rules".  There are times we've been able to inaugurate justice because of this battle cry:  Roe v. Wade, women's rights, privacy rights, etc.  But as it applies to individuals in general, we've had to mitigate its effects on society:  amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights.   Part of what makes this nation great is that we hold individual freedom and communal responsibility in tension.  Even though we seek 'to establish a more perfect union', we continue to suffer great losses of animal habitats, clean water and air, disease, extinction, violent weather patterns, the senseless deaths of women, men and children, culture, economic recession, bi-partisan entrenchment, and the greatest loss of all: compassion.

I applaud Militant Baker.  I am thankful that her rules include compassion for those who do not fit Mr. Jeffries' idea of attractive and that she is a highly vocal, visible rebel!  But isn't it time for a covenant that sounds something like "Our lives, our rules" and that we work on them both together?

By what authority do you live?

This is water

This is what I was trying to say so ineptly in my post about brands of crazy, that David Foster Wallace puts so eloquently:

The best brand of crazy

Everyone has their own brand of crazy.  You know, those unique idiosyncrasies, quirks, and foibles that make us who we are.  It's the aperture through which we see and experience the world.  Our brand of crazy colors how we view reality, influences our judgment, informs our opinions, and fuels our emotions.

But we don't call it 'crazy'.  Other people's stuff might be crazy but ours is not.  Ours makes sense.  To us.  Therefore, it makes sense to everyone, right?  I know, you live with this person.  Or you used to.

What I call 'brand of crazy' is humanity's way of dealing with and controlling the insanity we live with every day.  And by insanity, I don't mean what we've created combining our brands of crazy.  I mean the insanity of the unknown and uncontrollable:  where did we come from, what will happen to us when we die, what is our purpose in the mean time, we could stroke out or get hit by a truck (or an asteroid) tomorrow.  And the biggest one of all:  Are we alone?

If we thought about this stuff all the time, we'd be raving lunatics.  And by no means am I talking about folks with mental illness.  That's some serious shit I have no real experience to draw on.  I'm talking about we who've developed our own brand of crazy to deal with the insanity of this existence, so that it appears we've got some sense of control, that we have some knowledge of some kind rather than groping in the dark all the time.

We also engage in collective brands of crazy.  Examples of brands of crazy that we share in common with others:  religion, atheism, science, politics, philosophy, economics.  Yes, even that beautiful human being the Dalai Lama engages in some brand of crazy.  Gandhi.  Jesus.  Martin Luther King.  And all those desert mothers and fathers and that great cloud of witnesses we call the saints.  No one is immune because we all have our own point of view, our own judgment of what is crazy and what is not.  What one persons thinks is nuts another might think is the way of salvation.  Let your nut turn on that one for a minute.

Of course we will disagree.  And so we have schisms, conflicts, wars, and violence on all scales, from domestic abuse to world war.  As you well know, some of our brands of crazy are hurtful and destructive--we see no other way out of insanity than to annihilate others and ourselves.

But we don't just leave it at disagreeing; it's believing that my brand of crazy isn't crazy, that it's other people's brand of crazy that is at fault, that I could never be the way they are, they are evil incarnate, they are not human.  And this is the worst brand of crazy of all:  they are not human.  From thence comes genocide, the Holocaust, terrorism, torture, unsafe working conditions, bullying, exclusion.

Which all stems from one of the craziest things of all time:  fear.  Everyone has this in their own brand of crazy.  We're afraid of the unknown and the uncontrollable, deathly afraid.  Really, how do you come to some sense of peace about that?  How do you let go?  Ergo, the Dalai Lama's brand of crazy.

Here are my top 10 of brands of crazy, in no particular order, subject to change on any given day:

1. Papal infallibility.
2. The United States Congress.
3. Poverty.
4. Extreme wealth.
5. Addiction.
6. Pornography and sex trafficking.
7. Guns and other weapons of mass destruction.
8. Racism, sexism, and any other kind of -ism (Ferris Buehler was right).
9. Reality TV.
10. Grass lawns (think about it...you have to mow it six months out of the year, all that pollution, gasoline, noise...what a waste).

And we self-medicate our crazy.  Some of us have prescriptions that we need to cope with illness and the world around us.  But the rest of us have our drug of choice as well:  food, sex, drugs (including alcohol and nicotine), hoarding--all to varying degrees.  We numb ourselves and our thoughts and emotions so we don't have to deal with ourselves and others all the time.  This, too, is part of our brand of crazy.

Women and men have considered the other to be their own brand of crazy for a long time.  Opposites of many kinds think the 'other' is the enemy, the one who needs to be controlled, the one at fault, in the wrong, who needs to apologize.

But we do find ways of living with all these brands of crazy.  When we can accept and love someone not just despite but even because of their brand of crazy and share ours with them, we call that intimacy.  When my brand of crazy gives your brand of crazy a second chance, or vice versa, we call that grace.  And when we stop measuring others against our own brand of crazy, when we put ours aside and let another brand take center stage, when we forgive and are forgiven, when we forget to keep score, give others the benefit of the doubt--we come to the best brand of crazy of all:  Love.

As our good friend Thoreau once said, "There is no remedy for Love but to love more."  Love is the one brand of crazy we can indulge in, keep doing it, and maybe actually be able to come to that place of peace.  Maybe even let go.

The Dalai Lama.  Gandhi.  Jesus.  Dorothy Day.  Hildegard of Bingen.  Mother Teresa.  Albert Einstein.  Marie Curie.  What a bunch of nuts.  Thanks be to that nutjob God.