Today’s issue is mainly about caring for ourselves via bell hooks, and we will also be dipping our pinky toes in the pool of my womanhood. Ah cha cha.
Hello everyone! Hope you are VOTING. November’s alluring crispness and the change in the LA air is inspiring me lately. Do you like the cold? I once had an acting professor who taught comedy and he kept the A/C on way too high. The class shivered and constantly complained until the prof finally said “Don’t you know I do this on purpose??? That being a little cold actually makes you FUNNIER?” That cruel mutherfuk’r.
We would never know if this was true or not. Maybe holding this belief could make us perform better, or without so much pressure, since the underlying ‘truth’ in the message was: working through the discomfort will yield better results. Some mind tricks just work that way. And when a man says something, people are more likely to believe it’s true. lol
There are also the teachers that I’ve never met, but I’ve carefully traced their words with the deepest hope, as if they were speaking directly to me, and felt their brilliance, and attempted to apply their wisdoms in daily life. Recently I watched this interview between bell hooks and Beverly Guy-Shetfall that took place at The New School a few years ago, when bell was still alive.
In this clip (starts at 13:49) bell hooks shares a key action that women can take in order to make “significant change in the dailiness of life.” She talks about how her father was a boxer, and she makes an analogy about never stepping into the ring: the symbolic area of conflict. Her advice to all women is to simply say “OH.” anytime we are confronted with behavior that aims to diminish us. Just say “OH.” and nothing else —as a way to persevere in our care. I love this move.
Adjusting our reactions towards those who try to disrupt us. Putting our care first, our safety and peace first—that’s the takeaway I got from this.
bell hooks poses the question, “How do we maintain integrity of self and being?” in a society that is hell-bent on dismissing and degrading its women. Finding ways to answer these problems is the bane of being a woman.