Tiger Blood: Soul's Inheritance, Ego's Curse

“I’m different. I have a different constitution, I have a different brain, I have a different heart. I got tiger blood, man.”
-Charlie Sheen

Charlie Sheen, actor and self-proclaimed descendant of gods, has been the source of recent media obsession.  His behavior and proclamations, much like those of Republican sweetheart Sara Palin, need no exaggeration in order to become fodder for punchlines.  They spit gold when it comes to satire.  All that's required is to sit back and watch them do what they do.  I didn't want to join the throngs of commentators writing about Sheen in a point and laugh sort of fashion, nor the hoards of spectators integrating Sheenisms into my daily vocabulary.  But like most everyone, I too have been pulled into the mind of Sheen with his ridiculous, metaphorical (we hope) proclamations like claiming to be a "bitchin rockstar from Mars" and to have tiger blood and Adonis DNA.  But just how ridiculous are such claims?
Perhaps Sheen has the right vision.  Spiritually, blood has been considered to represent life force energy, "living energy that sustains life of organs, cells, tissue, and blood. As a spiritual entity the life force is considered our connective flow to the creator" (healing.about.com).  This energy is known as chi or qi by the Chinese and prana by Hindus.  Diet, exercise and meditation are regularly employed in spiritual disciplines to nurture and replenish this energy source and connect with all levels of creation from the quantum aspects to the cosmic.  Not everyone follows this spiritual philosophy but most have been exposed to some degree of this spiritual thought in its increasingly accepted East meets West form of Metaphysics or the misnomer of "New Age" Thought, such that spiritual practices are trascending religious affiliations.  Meditation, fasting, and prayer are disciplines that are uniting the beliefs of all denominations. 
Symbols of strength, energy and connectedness to a universal source of all are represented in many faiths.  They may be shapes (cross, pentagram, Om); animals (i.e. tiger, cow, dove); or people who are believed to have successfully traversed the spiritual path on which we all travel (Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad).  Many faiths believe that we have inherited a "sonship," in that we are children of our creator.  We are the Son of God.  In light of the above spiritual ideals and terms, to claim that one inhibits the blood of a tiger and the DNA of the gods is actually in accordance with many spiritual priniciples.  For example, Christians practice a ritual where they consume the body and blood of Christ, metaphorically of course.
 Even those who distance themselves from religious organizations but strive for individual growth believe in the power of asserting their I AM, the divinity within.  A Facebook buddy writes,
              "I AM STRIVING EVOLVING PERFECTION, there is no one, in any place, at any time, in     
               any form that is more perfect than I am. I AM the distance, the competition, the fan, the finish line,
              and the trophy. The day I die I will lift myself up on my shoulders and do a victory lap."
Any self-help, "new age," metaphysics, or even AA book text promotes such proclamations for centering the Self as an evolutionary process towards perfection (connection to the Source of Universal Energy).  This is the purpose for life individualized within each of us.  Perhaps the problem then, isn't what is being said, rather it's that Charlie Sheen is the one saying it.  Admittedly, he's no spiritual guru.  Yet, his words could lend to spiritually interpretation.  Sheen has the right vision but is on the wrong path.  But it's not entirely his fault.  Here's why:
What do you think happens to person who's society, culture, and country assert that they are worth millions of dollars per week for being who they are?  If you recall, Sheen's character on the sitcom Two and a Half Men is largely based on his real-life bad boy persona.  So we claim that Sheen is worth all of this money; we prove its value by paying him more money than we pay people who save lives.  I can see how this would lead to an exaggerated sense of importance and become, as in the case of Sheen, a misuse of the ego.  The ego, that part of us that is best illustrated in the above quote from my Facebook buddy.  Its purpose is to motivate and remind us that we are great and we can do it (whatever it may be).  It whispers to us in the gym, as we pore over an exam, and as we strive to be more than we are.  For over 20 years, Sheen's ego has gorged on his million dollar price tag.  How else does the unchecked ego respond to going from being worth millions to not being worthy enough to be saved?  It reminds us and itself of its I Am, ad nauseum in Sheen's case.  "I am special.  I am a bitchin' rockstar from Mars. I am..."
When the fractures in this once highly valued persona become too visible, we make a spectacle of it.  Commodify it.  Point and laugh.  We are country that makes our resources disposable.  If it no longer serves us, we no longer invest in it.  We don't nurture.  We throw it away and find another. Isn't there another Estevez boy?
This is our American cultural legacy.  We claim that something is valuable but send conflicting messages.  We claim that our children are valuable to us.  We call them our future.  We place them in competition with one another and those from other countries asserting their greatness, their I Am.  Yet we don't invest in education or programs that service them.  Detroit prepares to close HALF of its schools.  The American compulsory school system that has limped on for decades is slowly but surely being laid to rest.  This is where budget deficits first appeared and continued to be ignored as monies earmarked for schools often made their way to plug other governmental gaps.  We cut funds to community based organizations that promote moral growth and development so that our children are disproportionately influenced by entities with bad boy monikers.
We claim that teachers are valuable.  But we don't pay them.  We increase their duties and decrease their resources.  Behind their backs, we deride, "If you can, do.  If you can't, teach."
We don't truly value anything.  We use things and people.  We use them up and throw them away.  When the children fail to magically become more useful to us, its ok.  We can throw them away in menial labor or prison.  When the teachers fail to magically educate in a system that is counterproductive to anything educational, its ok...we can fire them and hire more inexperienced teachers for less. 
America used to produce goods and services. But in asserting itself as a superpower and grossly misusing its own collective ego, it only produces the American image -- predicated on how much it can delegate to others.  Like Sheen, we refuse to take responsibility for the damages that our misuse of ego has caused.  When the shit hits the fan, we absolve ourselves of any responsibility by claiming that it's the wrath of God.  Get your spiritual house in order...tsunamis, earthquakes, floods are all signs of the wrath of God.  But we don't need God's wrath.  With our contributions to global warming, eradication of the middle class, and human rights violations; we're doing a fine job of making sure that the end is nigh.Charlie Sheen is more of an American icon now that he has ever been.  He has lived high off the hog and we have promoted it.  Now, painfully aware of his dispensibility, he invokes his I Am: I am special.  I am Charlie Sheen.  You said so.  You made it so.  And he is right.  We watched him.  We paid him more than teachers, more than we invest in education, more than we should have. Thus, Charlie Sheen is not the problem.  The problem is the culture that creates Charlie Sheen.  This throw-away culture.  Get another.  Exhaust one location...just drill, baby, drill in another.  No regard for the overworked, misused, dying land/people/spirits in our wake.  We can do this because of who we are.  We are the greatest.  We are the superpower.  We've got tiger blood.

Is this 2011 or 1911?

Woman sentenced for sending kids to better school

As a former Chicago Public Schools (CPS) teacher, I can personally attest to our nation's crisis in education.  Debates in political arenas, community organizations, and education systems have named the various perpetrators of this decline as adminstrators, funding, teachers, children, and parents.  I certainly can produce support and examples for each argument, however, here is a case that has all of these elements working together to produce education and yet it is rooted out, stamped out, and completely destroyed by a judge.

This caring mother, dissatisfied with the school district of her neighborhood, placed her children in a better district.  Absent the legal ramifications, it sounds quite logical.  Unfortunately, because she was not a resident of that school's district, she has been found guilty of fraud and sentenced to jail.  To add insult to injury, as she completes her training to become a teacher, the judge informs her that she will be unable to work in the Ohio school system.  In fact, her newly imposed felony will prevent her from working in most schools.
In a time where most of our nation's institutions are experiencing great losses, many of our citizens find themselves seeking ways to at least survive; and at most, improve their stations in life.  For racial minorities in this country, this has been the reality for a long time.  It reeks of "Separate But Equal" claims. 

The punishment exceeds the crime.  The judge is effectively condemning this woman to poverty.  Even when she receives her teaching certification, she cannot use it.  In order to obtain training, degree, certification in another area, she will have to start over... time, money, etc. and still hope that she can find employment with a felony on her record.

Say what you will about No Child Left Behind, but I could have sworn that it allows parents to move their children from poor performing schools.  It's well-intentioned mess of legislation created by politicians who haven't got a clue about what schooling really looks like in America.  It hangs teachers and school districts out to dry, placing all accoutability with them; while failing to provide the necessary funds, training (to parents, communities, districts) essential for reformation.  Still, its currently on the books (not for long) and somewhere there is a case for this woman where NCLB can actually do some good.

Sometimes (more often now with what is increasingly seeming to be the fall of our nation) we hear someone's story and all feel the collective gunshot to the skull.  Hell yes, this could be anyone of us.  Any one of us 20-30 somethings who are working to reach our potential...at university or wherever, living within our means but below our expectations in neighborhoods that might be just OK but without any of the magnet schools where we know we'll send our kids.  I know there are great teachers at not so great schools.  I've been one (note: that was after I was a not so great teacher at a not so great school).  But that doesn't mean I intend to send my kid to one.  My kid deserves better than that.  My kid deserves a chance...even if its just the chance to fail on his/her own without having a school to aid in the failure.  We all feel this way, but racial minorities in this country feel it even more.  We've already endured so many disadvantages in this institution, hell, in ALL of this nation's institutions. 

Free this lady.  Free us all.

New Dawn, New Day, New Life

As is customary in a new year, I have promised the Universe a "new" me. New is the abridged description for the self-directed evolutionary process of maturing that I embrace annually to distinguish my past fuck-ups and their repercussions from present decisions and hopefully positive outcomes. It seems its always easier to claim the proverbial "do-over" when there is a time landmark from which we can launch into the new by jettisoning away from the unsucessful/painful/tiring old.
Yet I don't wish to distance myself from the past. I embrace it and the lessons that it has taught me. I aim to build on it, not erase it (after of course deleting the previous postings from this blog that I started back in 2005).
I make no grand proclamations here. I simply will write daily as a writer must...as I have previously neglected. Change stems from within and sprouts outward.