A Split Being

Humanity is known for its talent of hiding. We have learned the art of contouring, blending life’s situations and circumstances with our identities. Rather than seeking out the true nature of ourselves from the battles in life we have or may face, we can sometimes become lost in the very apparel of the scars life leaves behind.

These scars take on all forms, shapes and sizes. They come from all walks of life. We attain them as children and carry them our entire adult lives. We can either walk with our scars as healed people showing where we have come from or colour in our wounds to match our exterior but as soon as they are touched they bleed crimson red. The second type of walking with the scar can also be translated as ‘unresolved issues’. Those things that we think we are over but really there is another ‘person’ inside us who is warring to break out. We let our mask master us rather than us reigning over our mask.

Unresolved issues are like any other problem in life. They eventually come to the surface. You can not hide from yourself because sooner or later you will catch your reflection and have to face yourself.

Some of you may or may not remember a TV series titled ‘Heroes‘.  A set of stories about ordinary everyday people who discover they have superhuman abilities. These abilities bring them altogether for an ultimate purpose. Each character had their own story to tell along the battle field of good vs evil. However the character I would like us to get acquainted with is Niki Sanders.

One part of a triplet with the ability of enhanced strength at birth, adopted by the Sanders family which went on to form a great bond with her sister Jessica. Unfortunately her adoptive father was abusive creating circumstances which led to the death of her sister Jessica and a repressed mind state in which Niki developed a split personality.

Jessica & Niki Sanders

Niki had a family, a whole new life from the one she had once known. Niki’s abusive past created an alter ego which named itself as her sister Jessica. After many years she was once again faced with her father which conjured many different thoughts and emotions of her past. Jessica came to surface and protected Niki. As the doorway had been opened Jessica became more aggressive and powerful. Jessica could not be controlled by anyone, not even Niki. Niki did everything she could to suppress Jessica, she even took tablets as Jessica would leave for a while but when Niki had to face herself again Jessica would always come back.

The matter at hand here was Niki’s ‘unresolved issues’. Her mind had not faced the demons of her past which allowed an access point for an alter ego. Rather than going through the healing process her mind repressed everything she had experienced. Niki became two people, she was a split being.

Unresolved issues are an internal matter. When someone hurts us, if we don’t forgive or anything else for that matter, it creates a hard heart and we begin to feel the affects internally. This could be from simply thinking about a situation or person as well as seeing them or being put in a situation which has caused a scar. Our journey in life allows us to go through many different things. Some things we can handle and get over whilst others may be a bit of a struggle. It is very important to be honest with yourself and face the part of you that you are hiding from.

Some people have experienced what only we would say is inhumane justice in this world. Their stories tell of only darkness with which there is no light. This makes things harder as the battle has been so intense. However as John and Stasi Eldredge have taught me that you are always becoming someone or something no matter whether you are doing something or not. That God is interested in who you are becoming because you are becoming something. By dealing with your under the surface problems you are looking to become the true you but my burying them you are becoming something you are not.

Niki knew that she was not Jessica but Niki needed help in order to get rid of Jessica. When we do not deal with unresolved issues within us that which is not of us becomes stronger. Just like when Venom could take over Spiderman (see my blog post titled Resisting Venom) because he was being unforgiving and Jessica took over Niki; unresolved issues make us someone we are not.

We all need help in order to get rid of the shadows of who we become due to life’s situations and circumstances. The whole point of life is for us to be our selves to the best of life’s ability. We all struggle with the common human error of hiding but at what cost do we become someone else? Are our personal unresolved issues really worth us becoming something we are not?

We are better to face the pain than let the pain become our face internally. Being yourself is more precious and important than masquerading in a mask far from your real complexion.

 

 

 

On The Hamster’s Wheel

This is an interesting time in life for me. My early twenty’s, the glorious age of 23. I finished university roughly three years ago with an BA (Hons) degreee in Media and Communications (Journalism) and now I am currently working in the media as a media researcher.

From the age of 11 I said “I want to be a journalist”. I have never known why or can even give a reason even today, it was just always set in my mind; that is what I wanted to be. Since then I followed that pathway; Media Studies GCSE, Media Studies A-Level and then onto my degree. In reality I have achieved my goal of becoming a journalist, well the paper doumented side of jounalism anyway. I followed my decision and have the relevant skills and paper work to be a journalist.

However in my final year of university my heart shifted, I had a sudden change of mind. I remember being in one of my modules and suddenly I thought “I don’t want to do this anymore”. Was it all in my head?  Was my mind speaking or was it my heart? That is still the question I cannot answer not even today.

Now I am sitting here three years later and still cannot answer that very question. For twelve years I always knew what I wanted to be career-wise. Well there was one time where I thought I wanted to be a councellor but after doing A-Level Psychology I quickly changed my mind so that cleared that up. Moving back to the story; three years after my degree I have no idea what I want to be.

Do I want to be a journalist? Do I want to be in the media? How can one instant thought change my twelve year love with media? I cannot even answer that question and being a logical person that is quite frustrating. I spent twelves years finalising my young child dream and now it has blown up in my face. Can passions and dreams just change like that?

All the time I was in university I never thought about what happens if I do not want to be in journalism or even the media anymore; what are my other choices? I never created a plan B even though I minored in web/design and have the skills of Psychology and English Language behind me. It is not totally like I have no other options but the problem is vision.

The Bible says “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” (Proverbs 29:18– KJV). What I love about this scripture is the first statement “Where there is no vision, the people perish…”. I could break this down lingusitically and even decode it through textual analysis but since I love that we could be here all day (and night), so let’s not go there for now. My main and only point is NO VISION. This scripture mentally and emotionally describes my standstill in life at this present time. That one thought back in university has now, three years later, led me to have no vision. No vision for journalism and even worse; no vision for media.

I am reminded of a scene from my favourite Marvel character Thor. In the film there is a scene where he and Dr. Selvig and Thor go to a bar and Thor states that this is the first time where he does not know what he is to do. I love it! That is very much me right about now. I used to know what I wanted to do but now I do not.

This is the reason for this article, even the title of this article “On the hamster’s wheeel”. The concept of a hamster going around and around; going nowhere. The concept of being lost and stuck; a bit like Neo in ‘The Matrix’ or the children of Israel wondering aroud in the wilderness for 40 years (books of Exodus and Deuteronomy in the Bible) and even Thor in my previous paragraph. These are just a few examples that express how I feel about my career at this moment in time. I am a visual learner so visuals speak a language to me.

I think I need to definitely take some time out and reflect on ‘my vision’. Learn to depict, understand and re-work my passions, dreams and work on some goals that I have lost over the last two-three years. Habbakuk 2:2 quotes “And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain on tables, that he may run that reads it.” (American KJV). My emphasis in particular being in the key words “write the vision…. plain… that he may run who reads it.” Re-writing what I wanted then and the journey of what happened up until where I am now.

I guess this is where I start, back at the BEGINNING and the adventure begins again…

Will I Ever Be Able To Defend You Again?

I wrote this post 9 days ago and never posted it so here I go now…

I have thought a lot about the Media today. About the Media as an industry, as individuals and as a world dominator on human life. The sad thing is that as much as I love media, I actually cannot defend it much in debate.

A month ago I was invited to a youth event and the organiser of the event shared her heart about the event, why she did it and what her end goal/ dreams were. Whilst sharing she touched on the media and its publicity on the youth. She shared her experiences of the media and how they portrayed and represented young people to the rest of the world. Ultimately the coverage overall if rated was BAD. She expressed how most coverage of young people she saw was bad, negative; never showing, sharing or telling of their achievements or if they had made any changes that have impacted the world they live in. Never nothing positive. An example she gave was with regards to the the latest 2012 GCSE results. How one of the first things printed were about how the students had failed and blamed the Governing system as they had changed it. Her daughter had done her GCSE’s and happened to be highly sucessful; her daughter was not congratulated even though she studied night and day- there was no “well done”.

As the woman was speaking my heart sank and I wanted to cry. I remember thinking in my head “we’re not all bad ya’know… I’m not”.

Then the other day, more recently it happened again. I was at another event on identity. As we know it, yes yet again the media subject rolled up again. How the media have and create an enormous impact on identity and how people and things should be perceived. The more she spoke, the more frustrated and sad I became. She touched on how magazines tell you how to look rather than just finding out who you are and being happy with that. Further relating to this there is the whole talk about the body image GSCE.

Again a little voice in my head said “we’re not all bad ya’know… I’m not”.

Where am I going with all this? What’s my point? My point is… THEY ARE RIGHT. Most youth press in the public eye is bad and media have too much imprint on our identity that does not always or mostly have a great effect. The problem is I am finding it harder and harder to defend my baby… the media. The industry I have been learning about since the age of 14/15. The people I have met in the media and the skills and areas I have become acquainted with; I CAN’T defend them.

Not all press is bad and not all news is negative but the impact the media has is quite big, bigger than we know. The media are one of the biggest mouth pieces of the 21st century and beyond. We have reign over every area in the world and have the most precious gift of all… telling the world about the world. We tell you what is going on, what’s new and old, where’s safe and where isn’t, we advertise you, we sell you… summing this up; we give you what you want; but at what cost?

Clearly there is a community out there that the media isn’t reaching. There is a community out there that we aren’t getting through to or if we are we aren’t doing a great job. Why did the lady from the event not feel supported by the media in her cry to help the youth and show the world of their greatness? Why at the conference were study’s, images and “media opinion” so negatively shared. What is wrong? What are we doing wrong media?

The media is sometimes like an adult with a baby’s mouth, we don’t always know how to speak properly. If we look hard enough there are people and organisations with the media that are printing the positives about youth, there are good representations of natural every day women out there… these things DO exist but the problem is they are not always in the limelight like the bad news.

I remember one of the first things I learned as a journalist- “Bad News is good news”. People want to hear all about the bad news. My first thought was “well I don’t”. It was challenging; not everyone thinks bad news is good. Not everyone wants to hear about the bad side of Politicians or the recently known hygiene standards of the NHS being bad; some of us do like to hear about the good things in life. We love to hear about the man who saved another’s life, the bank who helped save a local person’s small business, the couple who got out of debt, the young person who has spoken to society’s most influencial people and changed something for the better. YES!!!! These stories are out there, you just need to look but we also need to make known these things to you.

The media I liken to ‘my baby’. I love it but sometimes when it is in the wrong, I can’t defend even though I would like to. You just have to sometimes sit down and have a think, go back and make the right changes yourself then hopefully the baby will learn.

I URGE you (the people) help us (the media) give you more of what you want. Help us give you more good news, even tell it us and I hope we will get GOOD NEWS more out there. Speak to us and help us changed what we print, broadcast and audibly tell. The media is a massive industry and sometimes you gotta fight tooth and nail to change it. We like everything else have formats, handbooks, codes, etc that we must follow and sometimes these make it difficult for change but we need a people who can think that it’s possible.

I hope one day I can look back and say “YAY” I can finally defend my baby”.