Life is going on as usual lately, and I've been feeling pretty good here in the holy land. I've been writing a ton of emails (more on that soon,) watching lots of downloaded TV (Entourage, Scrubs, and Coupling, mainly,) reading lots of books (currently in the middle of a fascinating one about the logic and nature of machloket (argument) in the Talmud, as well as a scientific one on the origins of the universe,) and of course, learning learning learning. The weather is slowly getting colder but fortunately it's been pretty sunny out most days, so I don't mind the cold so much, as long as it's not wet (famous last words). My daily life here is pretty routine; wake up at around 7:30, shower, go to class, eat lunch, go to more class, go online for a while, come home, eat dinner, watch TV with friends or learn/read some more alone or with others, do some work (yay job,) and fall asleep. That's Sunday-Thursday, except Tuesdays, when we have time off in the afternoons to go on trips and things. Fridays, I wake up whenever, go food shopping, lounge around, clean up the apartment, and get ready for Shabbat. Shabbat....mmmm sleep, eat, play games, learn, read, hang out, good times. Best day of the week, every week. Not sure how I ever survived without it. So that's pretty much my schedule. I go out to town sometimes, but mostly I hang out here. It's a pretty quiet life. I like it that way. Not too much distraction, no stress, no fakeness, just calm. (Not always, but most of the time.) I know the "real world" when I get home won't be this way, but it's nice to have for the time being. I'm definitely not taking my time here for granted. Also, my mom is coming to visit next week, (so excited!) so that'll be a nice break in the routine.
I often have random thoughts throughout the day and week, and I file them into someplace in my brain marked "blog," and then I wait until I feel like writing it all down. So, here are some of those random thoughts, in no particular order:
Brain-Power:
I was thinking about how we only use some incredibly miniscule percentage of our brain power, and the implications of that. I remember my Dad telling me that at some point, and then learning it in my Neuroscience classes in college, and now I've been reading some more on it because I find it so fascinating...I guess it's in my blood. Much as we know about the brain, there's a lot more we don't know, and much as we use our minds in our daily activities, there's a lot more we don't use, either through lack of effort or ability or capability or possibility. I find that fascinating. I mean, to think of all that potential we have stored up inside our minds, the vast majority of which we never even attempt (or know how)to tap into. Every now and then you come across some genius (unfortunately, usually they come with a few emotional/psychological issues, I did a whole paper on this subject a few months ago,) who uses some part of their brain that no one else does, and you are reminded of how much we just don't understand. A few hundred years ago, in the times of the great Yeshivas and courts in Israel, students weren't even allowed to set foot inside one of the top schools without first having memorized all of Tanach and Sha"s (meaning, the 5 books of the Torah, the prophets, the writings, and the entirety of the Talmud, with Rashi's commentary. Basically, a lot). They would test the students before giving them entrance by starting a random line from anywhere, and making them finish the line by heart, give the context and speaker, and then finish out the rest of the story/argument/idea that the quote was taken from. And that was just to get in. It's as if the prerequisite for getting into medical school was knowing every medical textbook by heart, as well as their applications and sources. How crazy is that? These were regular people, flesh and blood, who spent so much time honing their minds, that they reached what today would seem like superhuman memory levels. I have a hard time studying for a couple of finals in college, when really, given enough of a workout and enough time and practice, my brain could hold all the information needed to take everyone's tests at Penn, all year long.
There's a concept that each generation grows in knowledge, because each one is building on the one that came before it. So although today, you would be hard-pressed to find someone who has successfully memorized every single text, (though there are still a few of them in Orthodox circles,) instead, you would find many more people aware of many more concepts and writings written over the past few hundred years. This is true in secular circles as well – maybe we don't have a Leonardo da Vinci in our midst (we probably do, actually,) but we certainly have many more literate and aware members of society than in his time. As the amount of available information increases, the number of people with access to it increases as well, and the amount of general knowledge thus increases when you add everyone together. So maybe not as many individual people are using as much as their memory potentials anymore, (for several reasons I'm sure,) but instead we've gained a higher collective consciousness, which, due to the information age, we are able to share and distribute relatively easily. It's like the difference between having a couple of super-computers, and having thousands of pretty-good computers, linked up and working together. We're using a higher percentage of our collective brain-power, if you will, which is comforting. It may even be better that way, since the knowledge of crowds is usually more sound than that of individuals. Anyway, I still think its amazing to consider the potential each of us has inside our minds, most of which we don't even know about yet. In any subject, each of us can become an encyclopedia of information if we choose to. Obviously we all have our lives to tend to, jobs, family, interacting with other people (which is the whole point of learning anything anyway, to become better at those practical things,) but I think that's all part of it. If a guy can cram tens of thousands of words into his memory, including the deeper meanings and applications of those words, then surely any one of us can use that same brain power toward any endeavor or pursuit we want. I think that recognizing that we have more potential than we ever dreamed of is important in trying to reach great heights; once we know that there are no limits, there is never a reason to stop moving forward.
Reconnecting:
Last week, I was contacted by several different people from my past. I mean people I haven't spoken to in months, or years. I'm not sure why it was all at once like that, (maybe something to do with my last blog post,) but since I'm taking time right now to try and learn from everything that happens to me, even the seeming coincidences, I haven't let this one pass me by without some thought. It started with a facebook message. Then another. Then an email. Then another. Then a phone call. It just kept adding up, people who used to be close friends, people who have caused me pain, people who I've loved, people who I met randomly on a train (no joke). I ended up with no fewer than eight different conversations (some longer than others) with people who barely know me today, but who used to know me well. Everyone had different things to say, different things going on, different questions or issues or nice things to say. As a result, I spent a ton of time writing emails and messages, reconnecting. It was a good feeling, I must admit, to know that I haven't been forgotten by those who have affected me in my life. It's nice to look back at where I've been, and speak to those who knew me best at different times. At the same time, it was a bit disconcerting as well. Some people we drift from because of circumstance and distance, and those we are always happy to hear from and catch up with; others, we choose to push away for a while for our own self-preservation, or they have done so to us, and we just have to deal with that reality. I'm very big on communication, but I also know that there are certain times in life when you just have to know when to protect yourself from a damaging situation or relationship. But then time goes by, and you get nostalgic, and you start wondering if maybe you overreacted, and you give it another shot. Either it blows up in your face and you put your walls right back up again, or you reconcile and move on with a new/old friend. It's hard to know. So I've had some of that mixed in as well, and while I have been trying my best to be honest with myself about what my needs are, it's hard to hold back from connecting. It's just a human urge, to be close to anyone who wants to be close to you. It's hard to resist that temptation to just trust everyone, be everyone's best friend – especially for someone like me, who can write mile-long emails in about 5 minutes. So, here's what I'm taking from this week of people contacting me: I'm determining which people who should and will be part of my life forever, and, I'm figuring out which characteristics make someone a true friend, whether we speak every day or every other year. If we are meant to learn something from everything and everyone, then certainly I can do so from those who have been such a large part of who I am, whether they are friends, acquaintances, or even those I don't speak to at all.
Facebook Family Frenzy:
My entire family just joined facebook. Seriously, all my cousins just decided that now would be a good time to get on there (or maybe they've been on for a while, but only just started friending me). Up until now, I have refused to accept friend requests from my Dad, who has been online for a few months, because I needed to keep my social life private for whatever reason. But now that everyone's on there, it's pretty much unavoidable. So I friended him, and my Aunt, and my cousins. I am now "friends" with my family. And I made a group for them: I called it "Bender Family e-Brunch" (in honor of the famous brunches my grandparents used to host, as well as those my family continues to have for every simcha,) and I invited everyone and posted pictures. At first, I was nervous about everyone being on facebook; it was like two separate worlds coming together in a strange way. Facebook was for me and my college friends, not my parents and cousins. It was for pictures of nights out at bars and parties, not pictures of bar mitzvahs and from family albums. But now that I've started this group, and I'm seeing all my cousins' profile pictures and smiling faces, I feel quite differently about it. We have this incredible tool for connecting, so we may as well use it for more than birthday reminders and picture-tagging. Why not use it to connect to those we should probably be much closer with than those random girls we met at a party? There's no reason some college kids should know more about me (at least online-me) than my own family. So now, I welcome this change. I'd rather be facebook friends with my relatives than people I barely know.
Job paths/priorities:
Here in Israel, jobs and career-paths work differently from in the US. More people have a bunch of different jobs, rather than a single career path. It's the result of a different culture, and a different set of circumstances, goals, and financial difficulties they face here. For instance, I had dinner by a family in which the mother is a teacher, a physical therapist, a writer, and a counselor (and mother of two babies). And she always manages to be with her young children. This isn't at all out of the ordinary here. I asked her how she manages it, and she said, it's hard here, you have to do a lot to get by. And it's true, living in this country is not easy. It's not like America where abundance and consumerism is the name of the game; homes are often much simpler, not nearly as much clutter and extra "stuff" lying around, much more of a focus on necessities and basics. But on top of that, she added that she has a different focus here than she did back in America. Growing up, she was on that college, grad school, career for the rest of your life-path. She knew she had to get a degree in something in order to get a job in that area, then build herself up in that job, and eventually make a lot of money, so she could provide for her family and be happy. But then she got here, and her focus shifted. Her first priority became being with her family, and letting the money come in in whatever odd ways it needed to, as long as it didn't interfere with her family's quality time together. She got a job here, a job there, took a course here and there to build up her skills in different areas, as did her husband. She is by no means wealthy, but her family lives comfortably and happily, with no need for more luxury or extras. And of course, she never gets bored. (I also know another woman who is the head veterinarian at the Jerusalem zoo, who always manages (and managed, even when she was first starting out,) to be home by the time her children get home from school at around 2:30 in the afternoon. Now that's skill.)
There's something alluring in this lifestyle to me. In this modern age, most people end up switching careers once or twice in their lifetimes anyway, and I think that's what I'll end up doing as well. But in the meantime, I feel better not having to focus on the one specific thing I might end up doing. Instead, I can focus on what the end-goal is (a happy and healthy family,) and then let the rest follow from there. Who cares if I don't end up the CEO or the head of the organization or head of the department? As long as I'm doing things I love, and have the right amount of time and money to devote to my family, I'll be happy. I've always been the type to be interested in way too many things at once – I couldn't settle on a major, and I couldn't choose between classes until half-way through each semester. I don't see why I can't let that kind of variety follow me into my professional life. Maybe I'll end up as a counselor for families and couples, as well as a teacher and a writer and a mom (most importantly). Maybe I won't be the most famous anything, or make the most money in any one area, but through all the different pursuits, I'll keep myself busy, entertained, and making enough money to get by. I know the economy sucks right now, and who knows if we won't all be trading beads in a few years from now. But the point is to have a positive mindset, and to recognize that if I have the right values in place, and my priorities in order, it won't matter whether my family goes on vacations every year or not, or whether I live in a big or small house, or have tons of fancy artwork on the walls (I'd rather have drawings my future kids make for me anyway J). I know I have a good mind, I know I'm motivated to help others, and I have a lot of potential to achieve great things. I guess I'm redefining what I consider to be "great things". I think if I end up being a successful wife and mother, (and puppy-owner,) as well as happy in whatever job(s) I get, in which I will give myself the opportunity to affect the world in small or large ways, I'll have done pretty well for myself. So maybe I'll end up that way, doing lots of odds and ends. I think I need more stability than that, for my own peace of mind, so maybe not to the extent they do it here. But still. I like the idea of it.
Thanks for reading! I hope everyone is happy and healthy and doing well.
Love, Shira
