Category Archives: commentary

The Indictment.

March 7, 2016brain research, commentary, healing, human behavior, psychology, relationships, social behavior, social commentary, sociologyacademic pedigree, inappropriate dinner conversation, inferiority complex, inner child, mean bitches, psychological counseling, snotty behavior, superiority complex, The Bachelor, the responsibility of the licensed counselorruth ann scanzillo

In little over an hour from now, “The Bachelor/The Women Tell All” will air on ABC. This is the point, in the grande process toward “The Final Rose”, when all the jilted bachelorettes get to descend upon their alleged suitor with every grievance and moment of humiliation he’d brought to bear on their public life in a rush of female vilification that approaches the attack of a flock of buzzards. I, for one, on a night like this one cannot wait to be a mere spectator.

My online counselor and I had just completed our session. I’d asked him to let me read aloud to him from one of my blog posts, “Pedigree”, because I wanted him to know about something that had “happened to me.” To my mind, the incident about which I had written had happened to me, not because of me.

When I finished the read, I looked up at him. His face was contorted. He looked down, and shook his head. Then, he said that he felt like acid had been thrown at him. He called me snotty. He said I sounded, no; he actually looked right at me, and said it: “You’re a mean bitch!”

” It’s no wonder”, he added, “that you have so few friends!”

He also kept rubbing his forehead. It could very well be that he’d had a headache even before I signed on. If so, I am certain that it was made worse by my session, a fact that I would give him by way of compassionate concession. But, I realized that now I would be spending the evening processing that somebody who got paid to counsel individuals in the realm of human behavior had just called me a snotty, mean bitch.

Perception sometimes informs the agony of life.

I repeat: I’d asked him to let me read the blog post aloud to him, because I wanted him to know about what had “happened to me.” ; the incident about which I had written had happened to me, not because of me. He, on the other hand, insisted that I had behaved very passive-aggressively by starting the conversation, and aggressively by writing the follow up piece.

The community of psychologists and their corollaries’ consensus goes that, deep within the tangled mess we often see when we go inside, a fragile, tender child resides. We are told to fully see that child, to embrace that child, and to accept that child. That child is innocent.

At that moment, I felt like somebody just tore the skin on that child and inserted a poisonous penetrant. Psychic pain is not lost on me; in fact, in my trek through the jungle toward self-realization, I have become quite familiar with the sensation.

Where does one go, and what does one do, when one is told that others see, in the self we are trying to accept, only a snotty, mean bitch?

My first impulse is to shut down. In moments of extreme trauma, rather than act out emotionally as is my characteristic wont I simply go unresponsive. I sit very still. The muscles of my face cease any movement. I hide in plain sight, hoping that any and all external influences will retreat from their threat to my well-being.

But, being a seasoned, post-menopausal woman, I do have other options. I could take a hot shower. I could eat something that contains heavy creme and organic unprocessed cane sugar. I could meditate on those whom I love, or those who, over time, have offered the sincerest form of love.

Indeed. Even a trained counselor can have moments of lapses in humanity. Even those whose livelihood depends on the trust of the precariously healthy can make missteps. Forgiveness is the most magnanimous of traits. Time to employ it, with fervor.

Denial is only a temporary comfort. There is no place to really live in denial. Defiantly insisting, particularly at the top of my voice, that I am NOT a snotty, mean person serves nothing and nobody.

Having recently confessed, also in print, my total failure as a loving human, I’m hoping for further illumination. Perhaps the belief that we bring our own misfortune, that we invite our own misery, is worthy of contemplation tonight. I’d thought that opening the counseling session with a preamble about never having been trained in the social arts would carry some credence; apparently, when one asserts oneself in print, all bets are off.

Here’s hoping that the study in sociology presented at 8:00pm will purge me of any and all notions of superiority over others that my writing implies. After all, if one stable, otherwise healthy guy from a loving, supportive family can handle the challenge and condemnation coming at him from 25 angry females, an aging, single woman who struggles to remain relevant among her peers can certainly survive the perception of one man.

(there. I hope he’s happy.) (!)

The United States of Haiti.

February 20, 2016civic commentary, commentary, Deep Questions, slum culture, social behavior, social commentary, sociologyBernie Sanders, Democratic socialists, Doctors Without Borders, Haiti, HIV/AIDS, Huffington Post, Humanitarians against disease, Jimmy Carter, Phil Donahue, political corruption, power elite, strength in numbers, the 1%, Zika virusruth ann scanzillo

How many of us are old enough to remember the first time anybody heard about the AIDS crisis?

It was Phil Donahue, hosting his pioneering talk show, who broke the story. I was waiting tables in the local Greek dinor, spelled with an “o”, and caught the episode hours before heading to work to serve the 3rd shift bar rush, already all too familiar with the population to whom this revelation would soon become paramount.

The year was, I think, 1981. My elder brother was assistant director at the local diagnostic laboratory. Though I urged him to take note of the Donahue show’s disclosure, he knew nothing, as yet – no official information had come through the “wire” – and, being a scientist, he wasn’t about to take seriously any press release that hadn’t been sanctioned by the hierarchy to which he was beholden.

However, eventually we all knew the truth. Behavior, in American society, would begin its slow, resistant slog through the paradigm shift which ensued. Condoms, so said my oldest male friend, felt like wet socks; this would take some time.

At first, the crisis seemed remote; we neither knew anybody, nor knew of anybody, stricken with AIDS. We wondered; we might have even suspected; but, none of us knew.

Gradually, the epidemic manifested. Sourcing its roots on another continent, we would soon realize that the infection was essentially world wide.

But, far less likely realized by the mainstream, one tiny country would be hardest hit: Haiti. And, what this illustrated would become far more revelatory in its implications than the disease itself.

Haiti was utterly infested with AIDS. And, the reasons were socio-economic; the island nation was a suppressed people, its vast majority of citizens living in abject poverty. And, the reason for this was, while simple, profound: the leadership of this country was among the most corrupt in the world.

Yes; during the 1980s, illiteracy in Haiti was a huge problem. French being the national language, the poor spoke Creole and efforts to coerce them away from their native dialect were allegedly unsuccessful. Communication, therefore, was impossible – but, so was advancement. Politically, this was enabling; pernicious corruption had led to a massive wealth monopoly amongst the power elite, from which nary a vapor would waft in the direction of the enormous, ignorant, remaining population.

Smell familiar?

There are those who call me prone to hyperbole. I’m guilty of seeing potential for the drastic in the most mundane. But, do we not see any writing on the wall?

The longer we allow the gulph to widen between the monopolizing 1% and the body of our own increasingly financially dependent population, the more infested we are likely to become – by despair, resentment, hostility. And, yes; even disease. Only, now, many of us wonder just which puppeteers have the latest virus in their bag of tricks.

The sheer square mileage of our purple mountains and fruited plains could be dwarfed, compressed in a small amount of time by an infectious agent – or, worse – some alleged antidote marketed as a preventive. There are far too many of us still willing to remain impressionable, malleable, and subject, forgetting that there is still strength in numbers. Come. Let us reason, t.o.g.e.t.h.e.r. Instead of rallying behind a single voice promising to protect us from threat, only to hedge its own invested bets, shouldn’t we rather band together as a unified flank, and protect ourselves?

littlebarefeetblog.com

Take It, Personally. *

January 9, 2016Christian fundamentalism, civic commentary, commentary, contemplative essays, Deep Thoughts, family history, human behavior, psychology, sociology, The Art of Practicing Institute 2015democracy, freedom of choice, hierarchy in management, inner life, Julian Assange, personalization, subserviation, the meditation movement, unrealized dreams, voter fraud, what happened to meritocracy?, what threatens our institutionsruth ann scanzillo

*[FINAL DRAFT.]

Anxiety.

The community of social workers and psychologists might say that, statistically, the increase in anxiety disorders within American culture has reached epidemic proportions. And, the drugs dispensed to treat such disorders have become almost commonplace.

But, why?

Perhaps one of the reasons our society is experiencing so much of the old angst is because we spend too much time personalizing the behavior of those around us.

We absorb everything that happens. And, this informs not just our reactions, but our very selves.

The whole meditation movement, which seems to be keeping pace with the increase in social ills, is really based in turning attention inward. But, finding our Selves, for many of us, is a real task.

When we first step inside, we’re hit with a rush of Presences. And, furthermore, most of those we recognize as populating the space we call our inner life are ones about whom we don’t feel particularly fond.

Yes; that first “visit” with Self is somewhat of a shock.

For most of us, those we encounter first are family predecessors. Parents, relatives, an older sibling, spouses of same. Alive or dead, these all appear. Next, those who populate the belief system around which we were raised. Believe it or not, no pun intended, such systems shape our realities from birth and should never be underestimated. And, then, perhaps the most present: the administrators, the bosses, the supervisors, even some colleagues. Seems that, wading through all these characters, we can hardly find ourselves. Indeed, the room is full!

And, it isn’t their smiling faces we see; rather, it is the symbolic spectre they impose. Each seems to be present precisely to pass will and judgment on our right to live according to that which expresses our fullest self.

Parents bequeath to us any number of their own unrealized dreams; siblings, their competitive edge. Priests, ministers, Sunday School teachers, with their visceral tales of admonishment and condemnation. Employers, supervisors, each with the agenda that propelled them into management, hell bent on subserviating us via the systems they peddle. Together, they fill our subconscious with a collectively Expert Opinion. It’s a wonder we can claim a single motive as our own.

Most recently, we have all been grappling with an even larger entity, one which – in contrast to those which bespeak our past – is quite foreboding: our government.

Why, in a country wherein, for generations, its people never had to give a second thought to the day to day impact of those in power, we are now faced with forces that seek to alter the very quality of our hours. Living at the behest, even the mercy, of these used to be what we’d read about in History or Social Studies classes – viewing photos of long lines of citizens, living in remote nations, waiting to receive allotted food or clothing.

Now, such a scenario doesn’t seem so far off.

Perhaps we feel this more acutely during an election year. We realize that our government is designed to include, even welcome, our input – but, we feel less and less valued by that system. We are no longer sure that our vote will either matter or even be fairly counted. In fact, we’ve learned to suspect that the structure of our democracy has been intractably corrupted.

And, all of this compounds. When we awaken, there is an unspecified restlessness that meets us. It’s as if, by setting our feet on the floor beside the bed, we are opening the door of our psyche and letting them all in. And, they come, running.

Maybe some of us feel like this because of time of life. If we have lived beyond the developing years, the embarking years, the ambitious years, the competitive years, we’ve reached an established point of alleged arrival. The Now, for someone of our generation, is the Future for which we all planned.

And, plan we did.

We thought that, along with the modest financial freedom that came with foresight and diligence, the serenity and bliss that was sure to come from the belief that we had done the right thing would follow. Surprise; the scene is far from idyllic. Now, every constant upon which we based our decisions seems threatened.

Each of us needs to make greater effort, each day, to face the mirror in true solitude. We only think that those around us are watching and listening. They aren’t. They only see others as either a help or a hindrance to their own goals. While there may be a hierarchy in our niche of the world, we do not have to live as if our position within it is either dictated or determined. Change is still far from a luxury, and outcomes are potentially as varied as the paths open before us. At any moment, the only aspect of human behavior we really should personalize is the next step we, alone, will take.

And, take it we must, while we are still free.
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littlebarefeetblog.com