Good luck?! NAH BBE I DUN NEED LUCK DIS ALL TALENTT
Probs just my dirty underwear, since I mean obviously I keep all my bondage gear in the dungeon & my sex toys in the masturbatorium, like any reasonable person.
Srsly what is this, formspring??
I LOVE YOU MOARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
also I love H2Hs. Let’s go visit Ally next weekend, seriously!! I need to see you guys =]
Wait wow, I have no idea when I received this question / why tumblr is not revealing said date to me in any immediate or obvious fashion, but oh well.
What I have to say to myself back then: hey. I see you there, trying to make sense of yourself. Keep over-analyzing everything, trying to fit your memories and your two-bit intro psych class knowledge into one big-ass puzzle. You know like in the movies, where the cop finally gets a warrant, comes in and sees all these newspaper clippings and pictures and shit on the wall in an enormous serial-killer-collage, laced with yarn strung across thumbtacks, and he’s like, o shit this is our guy? Keep being that guy, except, you know, less crazed psycho, more innocuous freak pedant steeped generously long in too much time to think. No, this isn’t sarcastic—seriously, keep trying to understand yourself. Yes, it’s probably impossible in the sense that you’ll never write a magnum opus expounding your every nuance and have it reflect you, in your entirety, at any point in time, understandable to everyone, or even anyone. And that’s because you are not stagnant. As you look for yourself, you change yourself. So, there is no shortcut, no trackable solution. And you won’t find the optimal solution, but pursuing it is your best option. Why?
1. at the very least you’re never going to get bored
2. no one can really tell you you’re wrong
3. actually you’re always right, whether through affirmation bias or self-fulfilling prophecy
4. you feel like a goddamn genius when you think you figure part of yourself out
But anyway, there you are, processing yourself in an agricultural combine, uprooting your memories, debarking your opinions, pressing those facts and theories, centrifuging, filtering, separating into composite compounds, and baking at 5,000 degrees. Spoiler alert—this is what you’re going to find out:
1. you are still way too young and inexperienced to know jack shit
2. figuring that out feels as good as feeling like a genius
3. seriously, you love being a rampant ignoramus
4. it’s possible to love literally everything. And you can do it, too. A great capacity for joy can defeat any lack of occasion for it.
Here’s what I think was the main conflict back then / may still be for right now:
I want(ed?) to be “special” “different” above avg, sure, but most importantly not average.
I mean duh, right? Everyone thinks they’re special. So too does everyone get that moment where they’re like, shit, why are we here, why am I here, why am I conscious of all these outside stimuli provoking my sensory responses, am I really different from any of these other people I thought were mindless drones, does my life mean anything? & then they have to prove to themselves they’re special somehow. And honestly, I think I just couldn’t bear to let go of that brooding angsty side of myself, the part I guess I considered made me not average. I didn’t want to think it was possible that I would really… just… be normal HAHA. I didn’t want to see myself going to a college party andddd having fun. Or spending money on things like jewelry or omg FROZEN YOGURT jesus christ. I don’t know. I spend half my time striving to like, care about pop culture stuff and wear clothes and be a real person, and the other half of the time contemplating how I am not meant to fit in while climbing shit in the woods or whatever. Basically a classic case of Freudian death instinct there—blah blah thrown into being, spiteful at being born, hate it, part of this manifests as aggression towards society, hate society but want to be a part of it but hate wanting to be a part of it bc did not choose it blah blah blah blah
SO. Anyway. Year-ago me, here are the things you are allowed to do, the perfectly okay things that don’t make you not special things:
-Go to parties!!!!!!! Love college!
-DRINK
-Dislike Tucker Max but still be pretty damn pleased with yourself for having drank more than that pussy ass bitch
-Spend all day curled up watching instant netflix and have 0 deep thoughts. Still congratulate yourself on a day well spent.
-Go to the mall with your friends. Put all that fucking glittery smelly Lush shit on yourself. Do it. Love it.
-Eat dessert sometimes
-Be happy
-Love your mom. Give her lots of hugs. Go see broadway shows with her.
-Love your dad, too
-Love puppies, talk in a dumb baby voice to puppies
-Believe with ardor that 12-year-old dogs are puppies
-Watch Gossip Girl and shit
-Carry that stupid fucking coach bag your mom got you. Yeah I guess it’s trendy or stands for something or whatever and it’s okay, it’s just a bag, you can put your shit in it, it doesn’t mean you’re shallow or invest in some sort of statusy girl bitch money value system. It’s a bag.
-Be a hypocrite sometimes. Don’t give a shit.
-HAVE A TWITTER! IT’S OKAY!!!!
-Update your twitter with stupid-ass shit like “omg I love love :D :D yay omg puppies HEE HEE” and FEEL LIKE YOU’VE DONE SOMETHING QUITE MEANINGFUL
-Whip your hair back and forth
-Give people advice because you think you know things and then flounce about feeling like the fucking Good Samaritan!
-SWEAR
-Make OBSCENE JOKES
-Not about rape though. Rape is never funny
-LAUGH! Giggle, even! Chortle! GUFFAW
-Acknowledge that physical attraction exists. Yes. It does. Sometimes you experience it. This does not make you Jezebel. Everything is going to be okay.
-Tailor your facebook in such a manner that people who casually stalk on your page but don’t really know you probably think you are crazy / shallow / slutty / idiotic / insufferable / detestable & generally hate your fucking guts and daily exhale in relief that they are not you
-Don’t give a shit because you have friends who love you
-Love aforementioned friends with all of your being
-Defend them to the death. Get in bitchfights if you have to. Knock out some teeth.
-LOVE YOURSELF
The “stereotype threat” is the fear of having negative generalizations associated with a group one belongs to—such as one’s gender, race, or socioeconomic class—applied to oneself. Anyone in the category of the Other is susceptible to the stereotype threat. The dichotomy of the Other has thrived in human thought since the beginning of history: self and the other; the Greek and the Barbarian; the sun and moon; day and night; good and evil; God and Lucifer. To some extent, wherever a group exists, no matter the extent of its entitivity, those outside it are the “Other”: Simone de Beauvoir uses the example of three travelers who by happenstance occupy the same compartment, which is enough to make vaguely hostile “others” out of the rest of the passengers on the train. The Other is instantly subject to prejudice and judgment.
Mainstream stereotypes are the most dangerous and most likely to incite the stereotype threat; for example, blacks see themselves portrayed very specifically in the media—uneducated, confrontational, virile and violent if men—as do their peers of other ethnicities who might associate them with such. They resent being perceived according to this stereotype to such an extent that it cripples many aspects of their lives, whether academic, occupational, or social. Paradoxically, their fear of being stereotyped often manifests in ways that only perpetuates the stereotype—for example, black college students not performing as well as equally skilled whites on tests. The greater the perceived threat, the more likely the threatened person is likely to perform poorly. This is, however, a situational phenomenon, and is thus distinct from the “self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Steele suggests the detrimental effect of stereotype threat on black college students could be resolved by encouraging more interrace bonding, allowing them to realize many of their concerns are shared across racial groups, and thus racial distinctions are less at play than they feared.
I would suggest that strong students are not more susceptible to stereotype threat, as Steele suggests, but those more susceptible to stereotype threat become stronger students: constantly trying to disprove the stereotype, they feel the greatest pressure to achieve in any area in which their racial archetype lacks. I believe only the blacks—or any other Other subject to stereotypes—who hate their associated stereotype strive to break it; I would further assert that they only hate it inasmuch as they harbor a deep insecurity that they might in fact fit the stereotype.
For example, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that I do not fit the Asian girl stereotype: I am a varsity athlete; my poorest subject is Math; whatever connection I have to my Chinese culture is limited at best. Whenever I have a classic “fobby moment” such as pronouncing “maintenance” as “main-TAIN-ance;” thinking “towel” and “tower” are the same word; or not knowing celebrities such as Demi Moore, etc, and am called out on it, I do not feel anxiety or shame. I do not feel I have somehow let myself down by ascribing to the identity of the “perpetual foreigner” so often attributed to Asians in America. I do not feel wronged, slighted, or that American society dictates too English-speaking-white-centric methodology for evaluating human worth, all complains which Steele relates the black college students having. That is because I do not fear being the abject foreigner, as I do not feel there is a chance I could be: I do not suspect any truth behind the stereotype.
A stereotype threat I do feel, however, is the classic college-aged American female stereotype. The type of girl who drinks, goes out to parties, makes out with strangers on the dance floor, etc, etc.
(I am actually at a party right now. People outside are chanting “no rules” while I sit in the bathroom writing this journal entry. Pretty epic night out on my part.)
I feel victimized by comments that suggest any extent of sexuality in my behavior; threatened by guys who interact with me, in person or, as happens more often, over text or instant message, that they might perceive me a certain light; offended when people ask “how drunk” I was last night because I don’t drink—exactly because of the assumptions associated with drunkenness, that it “lowers (sexual) inhibitions,” whereas I personally am more likely to avoid uncomfortable sexual situations when intoxicated because I am fairly poor at standing up to men when not belligerently drunk. Despite my personal reasons for holding myself inculpable of the slutty teen stereotype, since my very first experiences in sexuality I have spent the years since wondering if I am secretly guilty; if I deserve whatever assumptions I fear people make out me; if somehow, via dress, body language, attitude, or some intrinsic college-stereotype-fulfilling aspect of myself, I am what I hate.
Would I have made the decision not to drink if I didn’t think people thought I was the “type” to drink? Or decided not to engage in physical intimacy outside of relationships if I didn’t think people assumed I did? Finally, do people actually make these assumptions about me, or is my insecurity independent of—or perhaps even in spite of—my peers’ real opinions of me? I would say how one is perceived in truth—that is, what’s really standing on the other side of the “looking glass self”—doesn’t matter; thus, as long as a black college student thinks he is being perceived as The Black, he will be feel threatened. Thus I am skeptical of the success of programs Steele suggests to reduce racial stereotype threat: while threat may be based on real prejudice, it can easily be created where real prejudice is not in the minds of those victimized. And is the stereotype threat necessarily some outside force encroaching on a black’s sense of identity and self, warping his behavior? I believe the black man only feels threatened by the stereotype of lacking intelligence if he values intelligence in the very particular textbook, academic, “white” sense that is robbed of the formulaic black. In that sense, stereotype threat creates nothing new or parasitic; for example, a girl who does not already value purity is unaffected by the slutty stereotype threat (see: twitter.com/harvardhoochies). Rather, stereotype threat takes a black man’s already-existing sense of (and pride in) himself as intellectually superior and supplements it with a drive to prove it.
[[I wrote this in late April. It amazes me how much my thinking has changed… from glorifying this dark-and-twisty Other / outsider / necessarily non-institutional / fucking Simone Weil type, ever-plagued by the censure of others and delighting in secret insecurity, to concluding that letting these arbitrary distinctions control my life and construct the entirety of my identity is meaningless, limiting, and not sustainable. It’s been a long ride.]]
[[Another note—unsure if “postdated” was the right word for this. I know that’s something you can do to checks but idk what it means.]]
I can’t believe it’s been another year. I guess I thought I would be the same person, but I realize I’m in an utterly different place. A much, much more unabashedly smiley and quietly wonderstruck and just plain joyous place. I feel lofty and accomplished, and yet eager to revel in every of life’s most mundane details; sated on my own sense of expertise, and yet so much more acutely appreciative of my impressionability in the face of life’s uncertainties; oddly secure, independent, and yet ready to trust my entirety in someone or something in a heartbeat. I feel absolutely blessed that I have lived and am living every second of my life.
I guess I have the entirely different experience to thank: new House, new life, new friends. New loves. But of course, some things never change. A year ago I was moving out of Thayer 2 hours after our swipes were taken away; now I’m moving out of Gilbert 2 with… comparably impeccable (read: exponentially worse) timing.
This year, I learned the hard way that people will make assumptions about me no matter what I do. That I will get pinned as that archetype collegiate female, who gets drunk & hooks up with randos at parties, regardless if I even drink. So originally I was thinking my last day of sobriety could be my FINAL TESTAMENT, to myself and others, that I am not like that; that I do not fulfill the stereotype; that the strict set of moral characterizations I’ve been calling my own do indeed belong to me. Never again would I have to think to myself: is there a reason people think these things about me? Do I deserve it?
Or I could quit this asinine endeavor, stop attempting to box myself into some arbitrary set of features, some self-crafted Procrustean bed that I have somehow designated as meritous. What would it do, really, having one more event, one more night, one more party notched in my bedpost at which I DON’T hook up with a boy? & don’t dance with anyone? & don’t get into any mischief? Who the fuck is watching me, anyway? Who am I trying to impress? I hate feeling like I’m citing specific instances that “disprove the stereotype” because I just feel like it’s ineffective / like I’m just making excuses for myself / like I’m playing some utterly pointless game of Never Have I Ever where I keep having to concatenate ridiculous conditionals to cover my own ass. Never have I ever hooked up with someone… at a party, while drunk, who was male, who I didn’t think was gay—behind a waterfall, in a wheelbarrow, on a ski lift, during The Dark Knight, with whom I wasn’t already friends on facebook, blah blah blah because everyone has fucking done everything, anyway.
So I decided, fuck this final testament to my bullshit values. It’s time for a different kind of last stand. Because:
1.) There’s no goddamn point. To anything.
2.) The only person I have to convince of my own moral caliber is myself. No empirical evidence can redeem me when it is I, impeaching myself.
3.) Only sluts can’t admit they aren’t sluts (I learned this from the movie Easy A. hahaha) (sidenote: phrased such for the sake of accurate quotation; official OSAPR stance, the word “slut” is born out of a double standard in which female sexuality is shameful but male promiscuity is glorified)
4.) Any decision made in the name of freedom is the right one (Sartre Beauvoir etc)
And so: May 15th, I had one of my greatest nights at Harvard, if not one of my greatest nights alive. Finally, I was free. Because I had realized, with no a priori morals, my values / standards / shit can’t possibly be what’s important in life. What truly matters is making real connections with real people, and to do that I can’t let all that labeling/stereotyping/alienating shit our brains do that is designed to categorize us and make us manageable get in the way. I’ve grown up a lot and now I am ready to live real life, not life as directed by all this posturing and assumption and trying to calculate each other and respond accordingly. I’m ready to be me.
Because being the fucking paragon of virtue isn’t going to save me. But I known what will: my friends. The people I love. The people who teach me to love myself. And to love with all my heart.
It took a whole year. But I did it. I love myself. I love who I’ve become. I love everything I do. I astound myself with how much love and respect I hold for my person.
And I know I have a long, long way to go. I need to start understanding and respecting other people in the same way—only then can I truly know somebody or have them truly know me. It’s hard enough to make a real, deep, personal connection with somebody without all my arbitrary indictments ruling out half the population on some constructed whim. Just like I am trying to break this distinction I used to make between girls who hook up at parties and girls who don’t, I need to be more careful about writing off guys for some precise action or another. Yes, I think that kissing, as a facet of physical intimacy, should mean something. But frankly, sometimes it doesn’t. And I should stop looking down on people who have accepted that fact. And I should realize that isn’t lowering my standards / destruction of my values, but learning to cope—no, more than that. Learning to move on. Learning that I’ve been putting kissing on a pedestal, one that, in some scenarios, if I really think about it, I don’t even respect—and learning that, fuck, that’s okay with me. There is plenty of beauty to be found in other things—like the kisses that do mean something.
Maybe someday I’ll even learn to use the word “kiss” as a verb out loud… but maybe that’s too ambitious.
The events of Hiromu Arakawa’s hit anime series, Fullmetal Alchemist, unfold in a mysterious universe where, in place of physics or chemistry, alchemy has developed: an advanced science through which objects can be created, or “transmuted,” from raw materials. What is perhaps the most alluring aspect of alchemy is that, although it has the power to stop floods, move mountains, build entire cities or raze them to the ground, any human can learn it—its normalcy in that universe is what makes watching the series so enthralling for us comparatively powerless human beings. While most alchemy involves drawing an intricate diagram called a transmutation circle, the most skilled alchemists can transmute objects simply by clapping their hands: their mere thoughts’ command yield their surroundings to their desire. We viewers enjoy that fantasy of living somewhere where everyone is capable of such godlike power, of literally changing the Earth around him to his own will.
What we do not realize is that we do live in such a universe. That this most seductive aspect of alchemy is also the most distinctly existential: that any human is indeed capable of great, incredible things. Alchemy serves as a metaphor for human agency, the great power we all wield, the power to take a life or to save it, to transcend one’s situation and fulfill the greatest limits of his facticity. Alchemy is the power of choice manifested in highly literal terms. Significantly, it is not some God-given ability, but rather one obtained through perseverance and dedication. Furthermore, Fullmetal Alchemist shows this power to be a distinctly human thing: animals cannot perform alchemy; nor can homunculi, which are artificially created humans; nor chimeras, which are half-human half-animal fusions. Thus, only for humans is this transforming ability, this potentiality, this force of willpower constitutive—only we have the power to shape their own lives and the lives of those around us.
The representation of alchemy as a distinctly human power highlights an existentialist outlook on the human being, or as Heidegger would put it, the Dasein: “Dasein itself is distinctly different from other beings” (Being In Time 9). On humans alone also is the burden of responsibility for not only one’s actions but oneself in all one’s aspects. Fittingly, the most complex form of alchemy involves human transmutation—changing one’s own person. This is the most essential form of alchemy, reflecting that human beings must take responsibility for their own choices, that humans are constantly inventing themselves, that any human can change simply by—and only by—changing himself: that “man [is] what he conceives himself to be, but he is also only what he wills himself to be” (Sartre, BW 345). Human transmutation is also the most challenging: its execution is so intricate that most alchemists believe it is impossible. Furthermore, it is considered taboo: alchemists who pursue it are persecuted by the state, mirroring the mainstream tendency to condemn existentialism that Sartre describes when he says “existentialism is regarded as something ugly:” that is, something pessimistic, something through which life holds only caprice, something denying reality.
Thus, most alchemists grow up believing human transmutation cannot be done—what’s more, that attempting it is the most abject sin any alchemist can commit. Similarly, most humans ascribe to some form of bad faith: we believe that essence precedes existence; that we were born a certain way and attempting to alter this is an act of hubris; that “we shouldn’t struggle against the powers-that-be” because to be in such and such a state is “only human” (Sartre, BW 343). Furthermore, humans are all taught that alchemy operates under the law of “equivalent exchange:” in order to gain something, something of equal value must first be sacrificed. Throughout the series, Edward and Alphonse, the two protagonists, discover that this alleged universal principle is breakable, that alchemy can in fact create something from nothing. They learn that, in fact, no logic or reason directs the course of nature, that the world is in chaos—that everything is permitted. As orphans they already lacked a source of a priori morality without the guidance of their parents; upon the loss of their greatest mantra, equivalent exchange, they realize the full extent of their human state and the world they live in: alone and utterly absurd. Similarly, thinkers like Nietzsche and Hume teach us that there are no laws in the universe—there is no cause and effect, and although we describe such a relationship for many phenomena we witness, we are inventing truths solely for the purpose of tranquility. After the “law” of equivalent exchange is shattered, so too is the comfort the brothers derived thereof: they are fraught with anxiety over their existence in a world with no order, no morality, no reason to guide their unbridled potentiality—the very world we live in.
Edward and Alphonse are just children when they attempt human transmutation to try to revive their mother, who died of terminal illness (FMA ep 01: Those Who Challenge the Sun); however, their attempt was an apparent failure, costing Edward his leg and his younger brother, Alphonse, his entire body. Edward manages to affix his brother’s soul to a suit of armor at the cost of one of his arms. The two orphans set out on a quest to recover their human bodies, the key to which is the Philosopher’s stone, a mystic alchemic amplifier with which even human transmutation is possible. In the very first episode of the series, Ed and Al stumble upon a city run by a pastor named Father Cornello who uses alchemy to deceive humans into thinking he is performing god’s miracles (Those Who Challenge the Sun). His teachings about god bring hope to the citizens every day—they tune into his radio broadcast every hour, live by his mantras, and subsist in a very peaceful, idyllic society. Ed meets a pious townswoman, Rose, who frequents the church with prayers and confessions—Cornello has lead her believe that if she serves the church diligently enough, god will answer her prayers, and thus she clings on to some false hope of her late fiancé’s revival.
Cornello’s church is reminiscent of the Catholic church as depicted in The Brothers Karamazov: both their teachings enslave the masses insofar as a willing follower can be enslaved, for as the Grand Inquisitor says, “so long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find some one to worship” (Dostoyevsky, BW 240). Cornello explains people want to believe in his alchemic “miracles,” which he calls “Acts of God,” because such a belief brings them happiness—a sentiment, Ivan explains, the Grand Inquisitor shares: “[the Grand Inquisitor] claims it as a merit for himself and his church that at last they have vanquished freedom and have done so to make men happy” (237). That these preachers bring humanity hope is not unfounded: the loss of her fiancé sent Rose into a deep despair from which her faith was her only consolation. Just as the Grand Inquisitor vows to burn the could-be son-of-god at the stake in order to preserve the power of the Church, Cornello will stop at nothing to destroy the brothers who intend to expose him as a fraud.
Ed eventually deposes Cornello, freeing the people from their belief in a false god. This, however, plunges the city into chaos, anguish and despair, for to give up bad faith is a difficult feat indeed. It is simply easierto ascribe to external ideas, to live an inauthentic experience, to take as transcendentally good what values are made desirable not by some intrinsic constitution but by human subjectivity. Rose is especially devastated: “What do I have to live for now that I know [my fiancé] won’t come back? You tell me that, Ed!” To which Edward replies, “You’ll have to find that out on your own,” citing the importance of each human finding meaning for himself—and through his own agency: “you’ve got a good strong pair of legs, Rose. Just get up and use them.” (FMA ep 02 Body of the Sanctioned)
The feature of this plotline perhaps most like Dostoevsky’s work is Cornello’s return: a homunculus named Envy, able to take the form of any human, impersonates Cornello and regains control over the city (FMA Ep. 14: Destruction’s Right Hand). The people are easy to deceive and eager to follow him once more, just as the Grand Inquisitor says, “man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find some one quickly to whom he can hand over that gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born” (Dostoyevsky, BW 241). Even Rose, who seemed inspired by Edward’s call to creating one’s own meaning, becomes a mindless drone under the new Cornello’s reign.
Envy is the first homunculus to be introduced. As the series progresses, it is revealed that homunculi are created by alchemists’ attempts at raising the dead: they are immortal, powerful creatures who bear the likeness to the dead human in whose image they were created, each named for one of the 7 deadly sins. For example, Envy was born out of an attempt to revive Edward’s older brother, their father’s first son. Highly intelligent and humanoid in many other aspects, homunculi are somehow still not human; by contrasting with homunculi, we can decipher what Arakawa means us to understand being truly human means, and the beauty of being uniquely human. In fact, though the homunculi at first come across as purely evil, seemingly insensitive to the death and suffering of innocents as they pursue their own mysterious goals, we realize they are taking commands from an alchemist called Dante, who promises to fulfill their greatest wish: to become human.
Greed, although self-professedly the absolute most wicked, self-serving, and feral of the sins, shows loyalty to his followers, the chimeras. Greed attempts to protect his followers when the other homunculi, realizing he has “gone soft,” turn on him. After the chimeras are killed, he reveals to Edward the secret to killing a homunculus—they must first be weakened by proximity to the remains of the real human they were created to be. Greed’s origins are also elucidated: Dante created him when attempting to revive her lover—he thus has some vestiges of the deceased human’s capacity for love. Although Greed claims he is driven only by his unending avarice and sought to protect his followers only because he cannot stand to have his belongings taken from him, it seems in his fierce possessiveness he truly loved the chimeras. This sentiment is best evidenced in their utmost loyalty to him and that Edward, recognizing Greed’s capacity for love, weeps after he is killed. (FMA ep 34, Theory of Avarice)
In boasting of his own motivations to accrue more wealth, woman, and power, we see Greed was trying to throw away his humanity—although he did love his followers, he denied it, purposefully attempting to become the Nietzschian human archetype: a disgusting, base, self-serving monster. This is highly reminiscent of the attitudes of Bendrix in End of The Affair, who, by hating God, professes faith in Him; Greed’s similar condemnation of friendship and love reveals his stock in its power to create meaning. Frankl also believed love was a way to meaning, along with suffering; as faith, love and meaning are so closely entrained with real suffering and hurt, Greed is desperate to deny his own love. Instead, he focuses on Das Man-created values like money and fame, or as Salinger would say, “treasure on earth.” In the end, Greed loses his loved ones and, indeed, suffers for it. In his last moments, he desperately seeks Dante, his human-self’s lover, revealing once again that his true sense of life’s meaning came from love.
Similarly, Lust is at first heartless and cruel towards humans, but later reveals she wants to become human so she can die. Unlike humans, homunculi are created—they have a specific nature, for which they are named; they are crafted in the likeness of a previously existing entity; their existence does not precede their essence. They cannot invent themselves as humans do—no, they are simply lustful; envious greedy; proud; etc. Save for the special method that Greed divulged, they cannot die or be killed, and thus have no chance of deliverance from this position of ultimate facticity. Humans, on the other hand, are not created: this freedom is at once our greatest plight and greatest asset. We can see this through the homunculi’s desire to have that same freedom—that same absurdity and intrinsic meaningless that heralds such wretchedness but also such glorious limitlessness. When Lust is finally killed, she utters these last words: “maybe you are right. Where did I come from and where will I go when I die? Maybe all this time that is what I wanted: the freedom to find out” (FMA ep. 47: Sealing the Homunculus).
Fullmetal Alchemist teaches us the key points of what it means to be human: taking utter responsibility for realizing one’s potentiality. Using alchemy as a metaphor for human agency, we learn that our actions are absolutely ungoverned by nature, God, etc; that external values and restrictions are null, utterly meaningless if not nonexistent; and that alchemy has no intrinsic goal, that is, our lives as necessarily meaningless. We are charged with creating our own meaning instead, to do as Edward advised Rose and find our own path—for existentialism is not just as system of beliefs, but a lifestyle, characterized by constant striving for personal truths and meanings. Existentialism as characterized by Fullmetal Alchemist, however, still reserves some amount of mildly mystic regard for death, a combination of the outlooks described by Weil and Heidegger.
When alchemists die or closely escape death, they see “The Gate,” said to contain the “Truth,” which enables them to perform alchemy without first drawing a circle. This is highly reminiscent of what Weil describes as her first understanding of death, that is “the instant when, for an infinitesimal fraction of time, pure truth, naked, certain, and eternal, enters the soul” (12). In addition to imparting the knowledge of circleless alchemy, the “Truth” appears as a humanoid form that can actually speak to the alchemist and impart wisdom. The “Truth” takes on different forms different alchemists, appearing like a boy to the brothers and a young woman to their teacher, who is a woman, implying there might be more than one Truth and that its substance is specific to its seeker.
Heidegger exalts death as “ownmost nonrelational possibility not-to-be-bypassed which is certain and, as such, indefinite” (Being In Time 243). By “ownmost” and “nonrelational” Heidegger means one’s own death cannot be understood by anyone else or on anyone else’s behalf; thus one cannot understand one’s own death through observing another’s. This is seen when Edward, who had to enter into “The Gate” in order to retrieve Alphonse’s soul and thus saw the “Truth,” tries to explain what he saw which gave him knowledge of circleless alchemy, and simply cannot make the other alchemists understand (FMA ep 19, The Truth Behind Truths). Death is also described as certain: even the homunculi are eventually killed, and indeed, some of them long for death, knowing their immortal condition to be unnatural. Dante, who was the master manipulator behind the homunculi, sought the Philosopher’s stone to lengthen her own lifespan indefinitely; in that she is the ultimate antagonist in the series, we are meant to see that attempting to escape death is unbecoming in its denial of death’s certitude.
Perhaps most importantly, death is indefinite: it is incalculable, unpredictable, its imminence indelible. Attempting to revive the dead is an act of definiteness which would appall Heidegger, and the suffering all the creators of homunculi go through reveals that same Heideggerian ethic upheld in Fullmetal Alchemist. However, Fullmetal Alchemist presents a much more religious response to the abuse of death’s indefiniteness which Heidegger would not condone. This is exemplified in the characterizations of the homunculi as the seven deadly sins; the notion that attempting human transmutation is a sin; the distinct contrapasso involved in the human’s punishment for attempting to raise the dead (for example, one alchemist attempted to revive her stillborn child; as a result, she lost many of her internal organs, rendering her forever infertile); terms like “The Truth;” and the Hellish implications of the name Dante given to the first alchemist to create a homunculus.
Through the explicit punishment of those who attempt to raise the dead, Fullmetal Alchemist seems to assert that life and death are still under some higher power’s control, and that, indeed, breaching this is crossing some empyrean line. In Frankl’s terms, Fullmetal Alchemist advocates belief in the supermeaning. This implies that deaths are predicated by some higher power; it is difficult to reconcile belief in life’s intrinsic meaninglessness with whatever extent of determinism is necessary to make its beginning and end somewhat intended in their specifications. Supposing we are able to merge these presuppositions, however, this system of beliefs allows for a god to exist in transcendental reality, not just actualized in our own minds; in that sense Fullmetal Alchemist is most like Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, saying truth does have to do with objective reality—there is a true god—that “The Truth” does indeed reside somewhere in “The Gate.”
Thus we are presented with a view of existentialism that allows for faith, one which I personally am willing to ascribe to. My definition of existentialism dictates that as humans we must strive for authenticity; that our untold potentiality must be appreciated, yet within our facticity there are things no human ought attempt, among which is raising the dead; and that, particularly through love, personal meaning can be fashioned to resolve our intrinsic meaninglessness. Humanity is born condemned to freedom and thus seeks the ease and comfort of slavery; yet, our greatest happiness can be obtained by embracing this freedom as humanity’s most wretched gift and most blessed curse. In the end, for all our angst and thrownness, we must be grateful to each have a “good strong pair of legs to stand on” and wander this world.
Every weekend I partake in an activity commonly referred to as “going out;” to what end, however, I have yet to ascertain. An Interaction Ritual theorist would assert people are motivated by the experience of the ritual itself; there may be no goal to be achieved at a party, no tangible prize to won from a successful “night out,” but the emotional energy generated during the experience itself is something we, as inherently social creatures, crave. Also consistent with IR theory, I experience the drive to go out over and over again, on a fairly regular basis—weekly, which, as Professor Nelson pointed out, is a common interval for IR, as seen in church service.
With so many of us fencers stranded at school over spring break, we decided to hold a mixer with another team still in Cambridge, the sailing team, who was also celebrating a recent championship title. This instantly provided what Collins calls a “mutual focus of attention;” although the get-together’s theme, honoring both our teams’ successes, was what he might consider a “formality,” I observed that it did help develop a shared mood between individuals: everyone was guaranteed something to talk about to everyone else—even better, something undoubtedly pleasing to both participants. People arrived with spirits already at high water mark, knowing the gathering was in honor of them and their recent achievement, perhaps providing a basis to facilitate production of positive emotional energy and collective effervescence.
Since the party was held at Harvard over break, it was a relatively small-scale gathering. Where it might be customary during the school year to simply walk into a party, there was little such uninvited entry observed at this party. In fact, a couple males that the party’s hosts did not recognize knocked on the door and were explicitly denied entrance; this was an excellent example of “a barrier to outsiders,” another component of IR that only served to bolster in those who had been admitted a sense of importance or distinctiveness, perhaps even a sense of social superiority that followed comfortably from their recent victory in sports.
The party was held in two rooms, connected by a little hallway of sorts. The first room was designated for socializing and drinking games—well-lit, equipped with a table for pong and a smaller table for slap cup. The night started out fairly calm, with most people sitting and talking by the window, a small crowd by both ends of the tables, and a few people at any point pouring themselves drinks. The emotional current shifted, however, upon the arrival of the women’s fencing team captain, whose top three most popular descriptors would probably be “crazy” “intense” and “impulsive.” She jumped up on a table and started up a chant of “HFT” for Harvard Fencing Team, and we devolved into yelling and fist-pumping.
Everyone chanting rhythmically unified our emotions and heightened their intensity. The sailing team became riled up in turn; suddenly, the drinking games pitting our teams against one another became more heated. A resounding smack could be heard as a filmsy red cup slammed into a wall some ten feet away after being swept triumphantly off the slap cup table. There was a great deal of finger-pointing and yelling in one another’s faces as cups and ping pong balls whizzed overhead. At some point in all the chaos, someone ripped off medical tape from an injured limb, balled it up, and lobbed it into one of the beer pong cups. He began roaring jubilantly and people screamed back at him, assaulting him with high-fives and pounds and much finger-pointing. It occurred to me that in most any other social setting, removing one’s plague-ridden bandages and tossing it into a receptacle meant to be drunk from would be considered somewhat of a faux pas, let alone something to be venerated so fervently, but as IR theorists would agree, it is all about the group dynamic.
At one point said female captain was flashing her NCAA championship ring at one of the sailors. What was before pseudo-friendly competition instantly took a turn for the ugly when one of our teammates commented that her NCAA championship win, which involved beating an Olympic silver medalist, had been a “fluke.” Instantly I, and I am sure he, sensed some sacred sanction had been breached, as reflected in the righteous anger that the captain and many of our teammates expressed towards him. Pertinently, Collins says that we treat ritual symbols, like the captain’s championship ring, with great respect and defend them against the disrespect of outsiders, like the sailors, but even more so against renegade insiders (49)—hence the emotional outburst directed against this teammate who we felt had betrayed our group.
The other room was dedicated to dancing. Most people would obtain alcohol from the first room and head straight for the second to engage in the popular drink-in-hand-dance. By the end of the night, literally everybody on the dance floor was paired off and making out. This struck me as particularly strange, as most fencing team parties do not see much “action,” as it were, because we do not generally engage in “teamcest”—the addition of the sailing team, however, seemed to have provided fodder necessary for this esteemed traditional collegiate activity, making out with randos. Displeased, I stuck to the first room to berate teenaged humanity’s lack of principles and also mourn my lack of a make-out partner to anyone who would care to listen. Eventually I had to leave with my roommate, who had lost her wallet at some point in the night and was visibly distraught, but not before an utter rando who neither fenced, sailed, nor even went to Harvard (what happened to “a barrier to outsiders?” Unclear.) offered me a makeout, ostensibly out of pity for my sad love life, which I rejected in a huff.
A couple of my fencer friends who had left Cambridge for spring break were eager for a recap of the event, but I found words lacking in describing the dynamic of the party, from cutthroat competition in one room to excessive fraternizing with the enemy in the other. As Collins says, “remote hookups however vivid will always be considered weak substitutes for the solidarity of actual bodily presence” (62). Even so, I hope I have conveyed the extent of intensely shared emotion fostered by this event with some success.
This past weekend I competed in the Ivy League Fencing Championships, fully expecting my team to emerge victorious over the reigning champion team, Princeton University. Just last year, we had been robbed of our championship title, losing to Princeton by a single bout. This year, the odds were against us, with our best fencer abroad for a World Cup in Qatar, but a valiant fight made for an extremely close competition. It all came down to the last three bouts in Epee, my squad. The other two squads, Foil & Saber, had already competed, and we knew we had to win three bouts in order to compensate for losses in the other squads. Two devastated Princeton Epeeists later, we had tied up the score. The final face-off was between me and the Princeton team’s anchor, whom I’d never beaten before, a member of the US world team, and, most dreaded of all, a left-handed fencer. Our bout went into overtime with the score tied at 4-4. Some controversy arose over a referee’s call; bout committee was called; and the Harvard head coach and Princeton head coach launched into a heated debate. Finally, a penalty point was awarded to the Princeton fencer—I had lost.
Once again, we had fallen to our arch nemesis, Princeton. I know I am not the only girl who sat down and prayed Columbia would defeat Princeton, so that if we were to defeat Columbia, there would be a three-way tie for the championship title. But as our best case scenario proved to be less and less likely, I began to become aware that our men’s fencing team was faring extremely well: they had not yet suffered a loss. I told my teammate I would be “pissed” if they came away with championship rings and the women didn’t; she replied, sounding mildly surprised, “really? Wouldn’t you be happy for them?”
This expectation, this social norm was not novel to me; I did not need to be told that the women were expected to be happy for the men if they won. We practiced together daily; we were friends; we were teammates, not rivals. I remember being surprised she had even commented on this. Certainly, I would be happy for them… wouldn’t I? It seemed so obvious that I was at first shocked to have it brought up, but once I began thinking about it, I began to worry. Was I in the wrong for feeling all the more frustrated by my friends’ victory where I had failed? Would my teammates see me as selfish, not a good friend? Was I not a team player?
A few more rounds went by and the men were still undefeated. It came down to the final round, Harvard v Yale for the men’s championship title; both teams had gone undefeated throughout the day. The whole Harvard team was eating lunch together and the men’s captain was recounting several key wins that had allowed their team to advance to the championship round. While enduring his highlight reel, I glanced around at the women at the table, among whom there was seated the women’s team captain. I did something my friends know to be a signal of my frustration (usually frustration directed toward computer) where I mime throwing something (usually my computer) off the table, a heaving toss of my arms. After effectively pretending to flip the table over, I began laughing uncontrollably. I smiled inwardly, a sort of grim smile, as I heard the entirety of the women’s team was laughing with me. I felt I knew what emotions they were feeling and that, similarly, they understood my sentiments: frustration, disappointment, spite. Generally feelings not desirable in a person, but especially when directed towards a teammate, and yet there they were, bubbling out of all of us in tired laughter.
But two hours later, the men’s team defeated Yale, claiming the championship title. I had been cheering with every touch of the final bout, and once we cinched the win, I was among the first to storm the strip and shower the men in hugs and congratulations. Even my instinctual wording in recounting this story shows my affiliation with the men’s team and their victory had been established: we cinched the win. Not them. The men’s team captain was crying, and suddenly, I found myself crying, too. The impetus of what we had just achieved shook me: we were champions. I looked all around me at the screaming, contorted, utterly ecstatic faces of my teammates, boys and girls, ratifying my revelation: we were champions.
I did not even detect the discrepancy in my attitude until later, when my friends back at school caught wind of our victory, and I was forced to explain that the men’s team had won, but the women’s team came in third. Only then did I think back to how I felt when I first discovered the men were in the running for the championship title: gypped. But the moment the situation called for a change in my behavior—the very second it was unacceptable for me to feign flipping over tables in rage but rather expected of me to be cheering and celebrating with my friends, there I was, right on cue, doing just that. But it was not just my body joining the throng in rejoicing—I was genuinely thrilled, happy, fiercely proud. And I had utterly forgotten what it was to be resentful and brooding.
I had changed my own emotions to match the norm. Was this perhaps in fear of retribution, of criticism from my peers, should I display my true feelings? Had I consciously amended myself to fit the norm, altered my emotional core to mirror how I knew I had to act?
Or perhaps I had no agency behind my change. Perhaps I made no conscious assessment of the costs and benefits, perhaps the decision to alter my stance was not my own. To take a psychological approach, perhaps this was an instance of cognitive dissonance trying to protect me from the gravity of the affront I had committed. My subconscious preferred to exculpate myself by denying that I had ever felt animosity towards the men’s team, rather than risk admitting I was of such poor moral caliber to begrudge my friends’ success. Such self-deception is necessary for me to maintain a positive sense of self.
From a purely response-to-stimuli standpoint, it is possible to assert that excitement is simply infectious; seeing others’ displays of excitement sets off certain circuits that override previous behavioral phenotypes and produce celebratory behaviors. The consciousness later wants to interpret this reflexive bodily response as coming from itself, and so attributes it to emotions that were not originally there but were effectively created through their physical expression.
What strikes me the most about the power of these emotional norms was how thorough they were in affecting all of us on the women’s team. I was not the only girl going from sulking to celebrating—quite the contrary, I felt as thoroughly at one with the general sentiment when we were all celebrating as I had when I shared knowing glances with my teammates at that lunch table. No matter our cultural background, our personality, our personal performance that day, we were psyched for the men’s team victory. The power of social norms truly is incredible, surging straight through our sense of reason and even consciousness and working our amygdalas.
