Throw Back Thursday: Jill Scott's 'Shame,' Self-Mythology, and Genetics

I am feeling Jill Scott's song "Shame" today. I mean the lyrics and attitude of the song, which is absent of the emotion shame. In particular, I'm feeling the line, "And you don't even know my name." However, I'm not thinking of that line in its literal context.

I'm thinking about the implications of saying "you don't even know my name" figuratively, meaning that someone does not see who you really are because they've adopted a negative opinion based on whatever issues they brought to the table and refuse to see that's  not you but their negative construction of you. Some people see only what they want to see when they look at another person, and if they have a vested interest in seeing you as the "bad guy" or "the devil," then they will block themselves from seeing anything about you or your actions that contradicts their assessment.

I'm sure you've seen it work the other way when someone you know has been deeply in love with a man or woman who lacks integrity and uses them, but the one in love is blind to the beloved's faults. But back to names and character.

The prayer of Jabez from the Bible gives some spiritual insight on a name as character and destiny. The name Jabez means pain. Although his appearance in the Bible is brief, we do know that his mother gave him that name because she had a painful labor. In context of biblical culture, one's name carried one's nature, infusing the individual with how he or she would progress through life. But, as the story goes, Jabez prayed and asked God to change his course, to free him from going the way of his given name:

Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, "Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain." And God granted his request.

I believe that whether we consider ourselves religious or not, call ourselves Christian, Jewish, Muslim or of some other faith, we all struggle with change when we want to change ourselves, our life course. It takes courage and self-discipline to write new stories for ourselves and not live out the stories our family, friends, bosses, or society in general write for us, or even the gloomy tale (negative self-mythology) we may have subconsciously written for ourselves.

Sometimes while attempting to change we get hung up on ideological/philosophical vs. scientific theories on this topic, issues of free will vs. our hard wiring. Can humans actually change themselves?

Humans can transform ourselves. However, I doubt that I can change myself when I'm going through a deeper depression, which zaps me of hope. So, depression can be a stumbling block, even a mountain because in order to transform ourselves, our minds must be in a state that lets us at least imagine hope. Depressed people, however, are not always able to see even a sliver of light, so they can't walk toward it.

Is it possible you suffer from a depressive disorder and it's interfering with your ability to move forward? You can check your symptoms here. Shove aside your pride, too, if that's what causes you to resist getting help. And if you realize that you are depressed and you have been for weeks or more, then you may need to take anti-depressants to pull through. Take them if you need them.

Whether you're depressed or not, I also recommend this book:  The Power of Habit. It's fascinating and inspiring.

I'd love to evolve into my best self and get to the place of confidence Jill Scott represents in her jubilant song, "Shame." Wouldn't you? But I also believe genetics play a role in how long we maintain a jubilant a state or urge ourselves into it. Yep, I believe there's a happy gene, even the one that influences how we fare in relationships. But I believe as well that we can fake out our brain's genetics, which is why I appreciate this TedTalk by Jane McGonigal: The game that can give you 10 extrayears of life.


And I know for a fact that music changes mood, which is why I was on the early train for Pharrell's hit song, "Happy." But isn't it unrealistic to think that our goal is to be perpetually happy? While I've used the word "happy" throughout this post, my goal is to be content and self-actualized. I may not reach that all my goals before I die, but I must continue my effort, the process of trying.

What about you? Have you been aware of those moments in your life when you need to change but have resisted that change or been afraid that you can't change at all?

I'm a writer, so you'd think I'd journal more, but noooo

I just read a blog post at Flamingo House by Denise about art journaling and some Filofax thingies and she's been doing something in or with her journal every day. It sounds so organized and committed. She says that the month of January didn't go as she'd planned, but still, I'm intimidated.

And she's Instagraming her life, too.  I haven't taken to Instagram yet or Vine or Pinterest. I've lost my early adopter mojo, it seems.

But every year I tell myself that I'm going to keep a journal or diary (Notice it's not lose weight. That's so 15 years ago). I even bought this fancy journal last year with leather and a latch and everything, but I've only written in it about three times since I opened it.

My problem is that I forget that I'm supposed to be keeping a journal. Even if I do it for say five days in a row, if something distracts me on day six, I'm done. A month may pass before I say, "Oh, yeah. I was writing in a journal. Where is that thing?"

In 2013, I even forgot to write on my blog half the time, and that's probably because I went through a bit of a depression after my father passed away, followed by my brother (my only sibling) six months later. But this year will be much better. I'll be much better, I hope.

Zora Neale Hurston as Maid

Zora Neale Hurston, renowned African-American author, folklorist, and anthropologist, really knew how to put a spin on her life. I suspect her philosophy was never reveal vulnerability.

It's public knowledge that Zora died in poverty and was buried in an unmarked grave. (The beautiful Alice Walker went in search of her grave in the 70s and put a symbolic marker in the general area of Zora's burial.) It's been said that she was too proud to tell her family that she needed help.

As you can see from the clip below in the April 27, 1950, edition of the Anniston Star, Zora would not admit to prying reporters that she was in financial distress when it was discovered that she was working as a maid. However, I admire the spiritual truth she spun into why she, a black woman with an astonishing resume, was working as a domestic in a white woman's home.

'You can use your mind only so long,' she explained to the U. P. Reporter. 'Then you have to use your hands.'

'I was born with a skillet in my hand. I like to cook and keep house. Why shouldn't I do it for somebody else for a while?'

Found on Newspapers.com

What Zora really liked to do was write, travel, study people, and network. Her answer to the reporter was a stretch, given that she was not particularly enamored of marriage, which in those days would have given her ample opportunities to cook and clean for someone if she really aspired to keep house. She was, after all, married three times.

In the documentary Jump at the Sun, scholar Valerie Boyd said that Zora "was afraid that marriage would only widen her hips and narrow her life? Her work was her master, and she followed its commands. And you know, she loved these men but they were mere men."

This adventurous woman worked as maid simply because she needed money. But like many writers, she probably rationalized to herself that she was also doing research for her next book while she worked as a maid, something she could never tell a reporter because what would her white employer do after that? The famous anthropologist/writer probably told herself she was observing white people more since she had spent so much of her life previously observing black people and writing about them. Writing about black people, however, no longer paid the bills.

Telling ourselves stories to help us cope with discomfort is what people do to hold on to hope or to manufacture happiness while in undesirable circumstances. They rationalize their choices and find purpose in their troubles. Nonetheless, it is true that it's good sometimes to rest your mind and work with your hands.

Another inaccuracy in the article, unbeknownst to the reporter, is that Zora was born in Eatonville, Fla. She was actually born January 7, 1891 in Notasulga, Ala. but fabricated a story about her birth so she could get a scholarship to finish her high school studies, I've read. She told people she was born in Florida in 1901.

Zora died indigent at age 69, January 28, 1960, in Saint Lucie County Welfare Home, Fort Pierce, Fla.  I recommend Walker's essay "Zora Neale Hurston: A Cautionary Tale" to anyone contemplating this aspect of Zora's life from In Search of Our Mother's Gardens.