Over exposed a slut Underexposed a prude My only purpose in life is to serve you
Because of my age I can’t legally be considered a human And because my gender is dictated by a male I am denied a female
In my own skin I am ashamed That I’m not what you want me to be Sitting in my prison With scented lotion to sooth its decay
My age is shoved down my throat beside the toothbrush that makes my stomach empty And every magazine that put it there Every model that told me how to be beautiful How to be a conformity Manufactured with blue eyes blonde hair all the desirable assets And how to be invisible
Because in this world as a girl The pursuit of happiness is dollars on a stripper pole Without a man by my side How am I to succeed by myself? I am put on a pedestal far away from the real science, math and anything else I might ruin Because my place is in the kitchen
My smile has been taxed with flavored lipgloss Since the age of 6 The crinkle in my eyes that only happens when I smile Is lined with black poison Because I don’t think I am Trivially beautiful
I wear velvet duct tape across my mouth Soft enough to kiss you But harsh enough To silence my plea
Every sale That tells me I can buy beautiful in a shade of lipgloss Which might as well be a glue stick It holds my mouth shut just as well
I feel degradation through every contact lens Under your microscope I am imperfect Because your microscope sees only my prison cells
We need to teach our women how to be Not what to be And I do not speak of tutorials on how to be invisible I talk only of the beauty that doesn’t come off with makeup wipes
Because if I would have known That the vomit was optional I would have chosen my sanity
Sareth Grunert 5/4/16 Growth as a Poet TEA paragraph
In the beginning of this project my poem suffered from lack of meaning and it was hard to understand. “The pursuit of happiness is degradation on a stripper pole” was changed to The pursuit of happiness is dollars on a stripper pole”. Because I used the word degradation multiple times throughout my two page feminist rant I thought that a little variation in words would help strengthen my message.
One of the biggest changes I made was lengthening my poem considerably. My poem went from 105 words to 341. I keep my poem considerably short yet keep a tone that delivers my message more clearly. I added a plethora of metaphors including velvet duct tape, humans to microscopes, and makeup to glue sticks. I also added a undertone of my own struggle with bulimia and how media’s views on “skinny” affect me even today. Another major change I made was that I added a few widely known stereotypes and how they degraded females as a whole. For example “I am put on a pedestal far away from the real science, math and anything else I might ruin because I was told my place is in the kitchen”. This stereotype keeps women from being anything but glorified slaves. “Every sale that tells me I can buy beautiful in a shade of lipgloss” Refers to the common view of women that the media tells us to be beautiful and not simply that we are.
Happiness Project
Sareth Grunert Section 2
Happy for the Modern Age
I believe that happiness is the appreciation of the good in our lives. In the book “Brave New World” they have a very synthetic society. They take pills when they are uncomfortable, they were conditioned to be exactly what they were supposed to be, but still they claim to be happy. Our society has similar influences with socialization, romanticizing drug use and objectification. We talk about happiness as if it is an object that we can obtain or a physical manifestation of an emotion, but happiness is an abstract idea that we possess. This idea is so twisted and wrong that we have lost sight of what it really is, happiness is simply appreciating our lives for what they are or taking the leap to make it something that is worthy of the label “happy.” To have true happiness you have to have meaning, passion, being a part of community,and create a society where everyone feels that they have a place.
The meaning of oblivion is the state of being unaware or unconscious of what is happening; this is the state we live in without meaning in our lives. We can see how people seek meaning in this day and age and how unhealthy itis--the rich get mansions and liposuctions, and the lower class scrapes by with the majority of violence and angst. Today we rely on substance in many forms to comfort us and to make us “happy”. In the movie “I am” it talked about how meaning and happiness weren’t necessarily mandatory to each other; I strongly disagree with this statement as any happiness without meaning is synthetic and shallow. Americans are also taught to be consumeristic with our lives. Right from the start we are brainwashed into buying products that promise to make us happier, skinnier, prettier, funnier, more interesting human beings. With our consumer driven lives we trap ourselves in a vicious cycle of buying our happiness. Our lives are a like a mountain climb, to truly appreciate the view from the top we must climb it ourselves. If we rely on the haze that we inhabit we will never see the view clearly.
In our lives we naturally possess a herd mentality, but in modern society we've become so disconnected that this mentality is more of a weapon than a instinct. In the movie Happy it states “every breath we take is shared with every other living being before us.” We are so invested in our phones and our cliques that we forget about our interconnectivity as the human race. We fight each other in needless war, we hurt each other with gossip, even in family units there is emotional and physical abuse. In modern society divorce is the norm and we don't even have the stability in having parents that aren't at war. What we need to do to fix the sickness that we've created is reconnect with each other and the earth. In happy Roy sr said “Nature is good medicine” in fact it is the only medicine we need to cure our disease.
In our society it is hard to find a place--this is because there isn't necessarily a place for all of us--to be truly happy we need to have a place in society. In the movie happy it explains how humans need support. All humans have the need to be accepted and needed, and without this our lives have no meaning. In this day and age people are cast out because of their gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, and much more, because of something as petty as racism people can be denied admission into colleges or other. Essentially in our world women are idolized when they do jobs that men tend to employ instead of being subject to equality. The great hypocrisy of my generation is that we are labeled from birth and pick up new labels daily, but we still are infuriated when someone assigns us a label. There is great power in labels yet we try and say some are better than others in the name of equality, for example radical feminism: in radical feminism the belief is that women are superior, but the main basis of feminism is being equal to men. To be truly happy we must also be equal, because equality is the only way we could ever find our place in the world. To reiterate we must find a way to include everyone into our communities.
In society we have the need for structure, everyone deserves a place to look for their happiness. For our society to move in a positive direction we must have a functioning, structured social group, an equal society, reconnect with each other and with nature, and we need to connect with ourselves to find the meaning in our lives. Humans are entitled by law to the pursuit of happiness; the best time to pursue it is right now.
Artist Statement: In this piece I used acrylic paint to describe how humans are disconnected from the earth. The tree, heart, and universe are thriving and beautiful while the girl and the swing are black and bland. The roots of the tree/heart go into the universe to show that we are all connected to everything else. The green represents the calmness and serenity that lies in nature. I think for the human race to be happier than we have to reconnect with nature. In this day and age we are so disconnected because of technology and consumerism that we have lost touch with each other and the earth. I spent a grand total of 28 hours working on this piece, and am very pleased with the final product.
Model UN
What are you most proud of about this conference?
What did you connect with most in this project, and how did that affect your conference performance?
What was the most important thing you learned in this project? Why?
In this conference I was most proud of the speeches I wrote, which were well written and got my point across to my fellow delegates. “this solution would give both peoples equal shares of land that would be fair to everyone involved.” We worked on the Israel-Palestine issue for this project and I found resolution 1B ( a two state solution) to be the most adequate solution.
I really connected with the right of return for the palestinians which my country didn’t support which was a bit difficult in the conference.
The most important thing that I learned was to look at different sides of each issue. It gave me a good outlook on the quote “Complacency is where genius goes to die”
I find the most motivation in writing music, it is my soul purpose and the only thing that has kept me going through dark times and light. In the video “drive” it explained how people's performance was below par unless they had autonomy, purpose, and mastery. Songwriting gives me all three; autonomy in the way that it is only my choice to do so, purpose in the way that I can get life off my chest and turn it into something wonderful, and mastery in the way I can improve every time and revise previous works. In other aspects of my life I tend to have minimal drive to do anything that isn’t creative To conclude, song writing is my motivation for the rest of my life.
Socialization Project
Sareth Grunert
Teenage dirtbag Hi I am a teenage dirtbag, an abomination to the system, an ugly whore, a teenage slut, I am Sareth Grunert and in all honesty I am none of these things but because of my age and gender I am put into these categories. How is that ok? I can’t control these things. How can a human hate another human because of how they are born we can’t choose our gender, race, sexuality, what religion our parents are. But you know what we can control?, Who we become, how we influence each other how we can abolish the labels and the stereotypes. Socialization is how society labels and categorizes us as individuals based on our age, gender, religion, sexual orientation, economic class, and ability. We associate age with crime and gender with being a whore, at least in my case and many other teenage girls. In the video a Call to Men it was said that “Men are taught to treat women as sexual objects and property of them, as opposed to actual human beings”. It is because of this that we have rape victims, school shootings, domestic violence. I’m not saying that men are the only ones to take the blame for this, not at all. In fact this system corrupts men and makes them into these emotionless violent beings. But in my opinion girls are the ones making these stereotypes for each other in the movie mean girls the teacher, Miss Norbury, says “You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it ok for guys to call you sluts and whores.” This is advice we need to take to heart. We have many issues with the way we teach our children, to be emotionless and insecure. Now socialization is not a bad thing, in fact it is what makes us human, but the way we socialize people these days is doing the opposite of it’s intended purpose, it dehumanizes us all on a daily basis with toxic stereotypes about who we should be, blondes are dumb, girls with short hair are lesbians, teenagers are delinquents and being a girl automatically makes you a sex toy.
Age is a large contribution to socialization as youths are labeled as delinquents and rebels, what people don’t understand is when you tell someone they are something so much they start to believe it they will be exactly what you say they are, such as saying that teenagers are disrespectful. As a teenager we are monitored constantly by store clerks, our parents and just about everyone else. We are “untrustworthy” and “immature” because of our age, when in reality if we were treated more as humans and less as criminals and given trust we would be more trustworthy. Because we are treated like we have no respect it angers us into being disrespectful it’s so simple. Some top teen stereotypes are that we are party animals, we are thugs/delinquents, we are lazy, we have to be a nerd, goth, cheerleader, starbucks drinking leggings wearing white girl, a jock, or an emo. And just because we are kids we “don’t understand” In the video Precious Knowledge a student stated “It feels like the education system doesn’t even want us here”. But at least for me it is not limited to the education system, because at times it feels like the world doesn’t want us here. We have the right to be here just as much as anyone else, it’s a right not a privilege.
Women, in this day and age are given very little respect, domestic violence is sky high and rape statistics are through the roof. I have been called horrible things because of my gender and it is socially accepted as a norm. Especially in America women are just sex toys and when we start to think this of ourselves this way is when we lose our worth. In the article Woman the Hunter:The Agata, an article about a small tribe in the Philippines, by Agnes Estio-Griffin and P.Bion Griffin they state “women participate in all the substance activities that men do. Women trade with farmers, fish in the rivers, collect forest plant foods, and may even hunt game animals.” Isn’t it funny how a tribe that is barely touched by society can have a more advanced gender spectrum then our “great” Nation. This is proof that this cycle is all in our heads the only real manifestation is on our screens. On screens we are told how we could be more beautiful if we do this or that we are told to be the cleaners, the caregivers, the cooks and the slut. It is America’s brain cancer that eventually infects each and every one of us. It’s dehumanising that we can’t give women the respect they deserve just as a human beings. Nowadays women are being degraded more than ever before in the article One in Four by Kilpatrick, Resnick, Riggiero, Conoscenti & McCauley “One out of four college girls are raped at some point during their lifetime. 673,000 women currently attending U.S. colleges and universities have experienced rape at some point in their lifetime” I personally have been harassed and understand how worthless it makes you feel, This all needs to end. Teenagers are given almost no respect until they are 18 and even then the stereotypes are brutal. As a minor I have been followed around stores, been told I had to wait outside, and asked if I had drugs on me, harassed by store owners and adults in general. Just because our life hasn’t been as long doesn't mean we have nothing to contribute to this world. I don’t think this is in any way fair to us to be judged because of when we are born because it is something we can’t control. This disgusts me, humans are such judgemental, close minded, animals. I see humans everywhere but it has been a long time since I have seen anything even resembling humanity it’s hard to live in a world that doesn’t trust you. It is almost sickening how we as people judge people before even speaking to them. I can’t say that this is something I don’t do. But it's no excuse that this “is just human nature”.
We are taught to be insecure with ourselves, we are taught to objectify women, we are taught to only accept perfection when human perfection will only live through a computer screen. This is despicable how we are “supposed” to be a dumb, blonde, skinny, curvy, boy-crazy, pink loving girl. I am someone who isn’t like this, who lives through their own insecurities and I swear to god if I let them they would eat me alive. I have succumb to socialization in most forms, I have changed myself, my mannerisms, my appearance, the way I walk and talk many times to be good enough for my peers. I am now working on becoming the person that I want to be and not what society wants me to be. Because society wants me to be vain and body obsessed, I don’t want to be judgemental and cruel as I am supposed to be. I just want to be me in all of my imperfect glory. Because I am a teenage dirtbag and a trashy girl whatever other labels you want to throw at me We can overcome this toxic system all we need is effort and time, everything we believe is ingrained into us through our parents, through our schools, our friends but if we teach our children how to think and not what to think then we can overcome any problem our world hits us with, even this.
Mask Paragraph:My mask is my representation of what happens when you are caught in the target groups of society and can’t conform. The cracks represent the pressure put on us by our parents, our teachers and our family. In my life I have always struggled with depression and social anxiety, the empty eyes and stitched mouth are my interpretation of what happens when you aren’t able to express yourself or your needs for fear of being weak. The patch work on the cheeks represents how I changed myself and patched together a life, much different than mine, so that I could to cover the real me up. Some would say my mask is scary or creepy but all I can say is that it is much scarier to wear it.
“Brave” New World
Technical melancholy howling in dead flowers Posthumous whiteness, momentary eclipse in their conditioning General conscious, unconscious Savage under-sterilized in a prison But in this habitual madness annihilating requiem Madness, infectious I am savage, remorseless, obedient Unmalicious soma, immortal but, disagreeable? conveniently lonely whisked away with general abandon and infectious obedience Forbidden knowledge a surrogate charming topsy-turvydom in soma holidays indescribably annihilating Living prison, freedom just out of grasp Sonorous distraught, Unorthodox, orthodox Burst of magnanimity a dim monument of the past
Today we were asked two questions, one: why do we consume?, and two: what are the negative effects of consumption?. I will only answer one of these questions. Why do we consume? We consume because it is the epitome of our lives. Throughout our lives we are taught that we have to have everything. In the movie “Consumed” it an author stated “We’ve all gone collectively insane” I feel that this is explicitly accurate with our modern consumer driven lives. Our vanity drowns out personality. Today we are more shallow with material possessions than that of previous the vanity of even looks. Essentially a major brand could sell a banana peel for a thousand dollars and because it is that major brand’s product it would sell; regardless of the fact that it is a banana peel. Consumerism in modern America is essentially just an attempt to fill in internal void with material wealth. To conclude, we as humans consume because we want to better ourselves materially and not emotionally.