Shake It Off

The Dancing Class, 1870, Edgar Degas

The work of a parent of young children is never done - it is just set to a different theme song. Call it a bittersweet victory or just a pivotal moment in every parent's life, the realization that your kids have evolved beyond the annoying hypnotic charm of Cocomelon comes with some complicated emotions. Do you celebrate or mourn? Part of me celebrated - that she is growing up, moving on developmentally to pick up on new songs that are more age-appropriate. Another part of me felt a pinch of sadness, as this marked the beginning of a series of instances where she would outgrow something that had played an important role for half of her formative years.

“Cocomelon is for babies, and I am not a baby anymore, daddy. I am a big kid now,” she said. An existence free of Cocomelon was like a parental lottery win. Then came Benson Boone, Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa, Post Malone, and so on.

She agreed with me that she wouldn’t watch Post Malone's "Rockstar" video song "because it has too much blood in it,” and she’d only listen to the audio version, as well as Malone’s “Sunflower” song that she found very catchy and loved. Dua Lipa's workout song "Physical" - with its choreographed dance sequences, bright colors, and visual references to the ‘80s fitness culture - became an instant hit for her, and she could imitate, albeit with childlike efficiency, every choreographed move Dua and other performers could do in the song. But it was Taylor Swift's highly acclaimed song "Shake It Off" that caught her attention, and she glued to the song for weeks.

And no wonder why Swift strikes such a chord with youths because of her personal songs that encompass young people's emotional struggles in relation to themes such as self-discovery, personal growth, first love, heartbreak, and friendship. A catchy pop anthem, "Shake It Off" is a reflection on individual identity and personal resilience and cherishing them.

A staunch follower of existentialism and stoicism would see the song as an expression of an existentialist philosophical position that defies societal norms and external criticism, as well as Stoicism’s tenet that dictates distinguishing and accepting things we can and cannot control.

The song embodies Jean-Paul Sartre's idea of radical freedom that talks both about the privilege and the burden of self-determination. “Man is condemned to be free,” Sartre said. We are responsible for our actions and choices, even though we did not choose to be born and/or to exist. There is no meaning to human existence.

By consciously choosing how to understand and respond to criticism, the protagonist of the song demonstrates an authentic way of being. She asserts her right to define herself rather than assimilate the unfavorable opinions of others. She also illustrates the Stoic idea of paying more attention to how you react on the inside than how you react on the outside. Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher, said, “You have power over your mind - not external events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” By turning criticism into a metaphor for controlling one's emotions and maintaining psychological independence, "Shake It Off" celebrates criticism.

Hard Being Me, 2020, Marcelina Amelia

Foucault, the French postmodernist, challenged the idea that power is exerted by a central authority. Rather, he saw power as distributed, dispersed, and pervasive. "Power is everywhere...because it comes from everywhere.” Foucault emphasized that through the new "humane" practices of "surveillance" and "discipline" used in new institutions, [French] society had reconfigured punishment. And by practices of discipline, he meant normative pressures related to gender, sexuality, and mental health (and health in general). “Shake It Off” questions these Foucauldian ideas of normative pressure and societal surveillance. The song celebrates a girl creating her own identity and narrative rather than allowing herself to be disciplined by others.

All musical compositions resonate with the shared, timeless experiences of humanity. From the elemental rhythms of ancient drums to the digital sounds of modern pop, music has forever chronicled the story of hearts that pound, feet that glide, and spirits that soar.

The basic elements of music are almost always consistent: rhythms echoing our heartbeats, harmonies capturing the depth of our feelings, and melodies aligned with the natural flow of language. They are all different, yet they are all the same because they all spring from the same well of emotion, human experience, and the need for connection through sound.

High Five: The Paradox of Time

Watching your child grow up causes time to bend in a strange way. Being a parent is the only thing that can make five years seem like an eternity, yet it also passes in a flash. Only being a parent can create this contradiction. I'm thinking about the essence of time as my kid approaches this milestone. At five, she's in the beautiful process of becoming. She's no longer a completely helpless baby, but not yet the confident child who will navigate the world more and more on her own. It's an in-between phase, a doorway separating two distinct stages of being. 

The Greeks spoke of chronos and kairos - chronological time versus the right moment. Her five years can be traced in chronos: 1,825 days, tons of diapers, first steps, first words. But it's the kairos moments that cut through the daily haze: her first real belly laugh, the day she called the moon beautiful, the morning during a car drive she said she really loved Taylor Swift. Five is the age of infinite questions, where "why" is both a greeting and an approach to life.   

Through her perspective, I'm reminded that wonder is not only the beginning of wisdom - it is wisdom. She approaches each day as a scientist, explorer, doctor, and artist - experimenting with slime, flashlights, toy medical kits, solving puzzles, building blocks, drawing and painting and signing her name on the paper, cherishing every visit to the local library, going on picnics in the woods with her binoculars and being intrigued by deer, snakes, rabbits, and people we’d encounter, and one day saying that our small-breed dog, Harper, would somehow grow up to be a “big dog someday, and then we’ll train her to be a smart dog.”  

As she turns five, I'm struck by the realization that being a parent means constantly living in the present while being pulled in different directions. We work hard to prepare her for an uncertain future, but at the same time we cling desperately to each fleeting moment. Perhaps this is what brings the most profound reality of parenting: it makes us time travelers. In our minds, we simultaneously inhabit our own childhood memories, our children's present, and the adult versions of ourselves they will eventually become. 

Five years old is a full hand of fingers, a galaxy of memories, a lifetime of love, all compressed into 1,825 individual days, each a complete cosmos in and of itself. 

Pandemic Journal-III

Weathering Heights

The winter – minus any major snowstorm and bone-chilling temperatures – was a bust. This year, it lived just in anticipation. We foresaw it coming, but it never actually arrived, like Samuel Beckett’s Godot. De-icer salt, snow boots, snow shovels, ice scrapers and snow brushes for cars were sparingly used. The local tri-state areas (areas surrounding New York City and Philadelphia metropolitan areas) likely experienced one of the warmest January in a century, with snowfall ranging from meager to barely existent, especially around Philadelphia.

January 2022

In Washington, D.C., cherry trees in the Tidal Basin – much like daffodils and tulips in the front yard of my house – are confused by the climate change, blossoming much earlier than expected due to unusually warm winter. As temperatures hovered in the sixties in Fahrenheit one day and in the twenties and thirties the other day, the winter this year acted, in some ways, like a hormonal teenager. It will not do what it is supposed to do, and it surely has no idea what is going on despite there is a lot going on.

With wildfires, extreme heat, drought, atmospheric rivers flooding, windstorm and snowstorm all affecting the state within a span of a year, California needs a special mention while we talk about weather extremes and the impact of climate change and how it is rapidly accelerating and compounding. Being one of the most biologically diverse regions of the earth, California has the highest number of flora and fauna of all other states in the United States. Weather extremes and ensuing climate change will not only negatively impact plant and wildlife habitats but also the ability of the state's ecosystems to support wildlife, clean water, timber, fish and other goods and services essential for the well-being of the state’s residents.

Voorhees, NJ. Summer, 2022.

Scientists and government agencies globally have suggested that the Earth is warming mainly due to human activity. Fossil fuels’ consumption has resulted in increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which, as a result, blocks heat from escaping into space. We may already be too late in reversing the worst effects of climate change, but studies by NASA emphasize that some of the worst effects of climate change may still be avoided or at least curtailed by responding with a two-tier approach: 1) mitigation (decreasing the flow of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere) and 2) adaptation (adapt to and learning to live with the climate change).


Itsy Bitsy Spider

If you are into Camus, there is no way the nursery rhyme Itsy Bitsy Spider does not remind you of the French philosopher’s essay Myth of Sisyphus. My daughter grew up listening to the nursery song – along with dozens of other rhymes, thanks to the highly addictive Cocomelon TV show – for around three years after being born, and her occasional humming of the song makes me wonder if whoever wrote the song wrote it as a response to Camus’s commentary on Sisyphus.

“The itsy bitsy spider crawled up the water spout.

Down came the rain, and washed the spider out.

Out came the sun, and dried up all the rain,

and the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again.”




The spider’s adventure is a man’s journey, albeit Sisyphus’s. For Sisyphus, rolling the boulder for eternity, and for the spider crawling up the water spout, is a metaphor for our struggles – and the absurdity, in many ways – in our lives. Being the “wisest and most prudent of all mortals,” Sisyphus was also rebellious that led him to be condemned by the gods to an unending, hopeless, and futile task of rolling a large rock up a hill only to see it roll back down to the bottom of the hill after he reaches the top.

Camus concludes his essay, suggesting that we must imagine Sisyphus happy. “Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of this mountain full of night, alone forms a world. The struggle itself to the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

Acknowledging and accepting our fate is the ultimate, absurd victory. For the spider, it is to see itself crawling up the water spout and being washed out by the rain over and over again. For Sisyphus, it is to relentlessly roll the boulder uphill only to see it later roll down and still concluding that everything is fine.

Baby Babble

 

Fall, 2022

Until a few weeks ago, many of her sentences used to start with “because.” “Because I want to watch my [TV] show.” “Because Karli is my best friend.” And “also” in a sentence will be “also too” to her, eg, “I love you also too,” “I want to go to Starbucks also too,” and “mommy is White. Daddy is Brown. I am Brown also too.”

Her new thing is joining a few sentences without a period, making them a funny, muddling mosaic of thoughts. “I don’t open the door when mommy and daddy don’t open the door to strangers I have to tell mommy and daddy there’s a stranger at the door.”

It is fascinating how kids – since the day they are born – are programmed to develop language and speech: from cooing, smile, laugh [and screams and cries, of course] and babbling to speaking their first word, putting a few words together, forming a sentence and later expressing their thoughts and feelings in relatively longer and complex conversations. The earliest five years are most crucial, while the language development continues well into adolescence.


Father's Day, 2022

Parenthood is uncharted territory, regardless of the parent’s age or the kid’s age. There are many questions, many answers, many styles of raising a child, many styles of not raising a child, many theories, many facts, many tittle-tattles. As an individual or as a couple or as a group raising a child, we gravitate toward ideas, values, and beliefs that resonate with who we are and what our fundamental beliefs about people and the society are.


COVID-19: The Way Ahead

There are a few known unknowns and a lot of unknown unknowns when it comes to knowing the origin of COVID-19 virus and how it remains a mystery four years into the pandemic. The questions and concerns linger about whether the virus originated in animals, or it was a result of a leak from a lab in China. Health analysts and experts say the exact origin of the virus may remain unknown for many years.

 

Philadelphia. Fall, 2022.

Conditions of the ongoing global crisis existed even before the COVID-19 pandemic began four years ago, but governments in many countries failed to safeguard their populations, while in many others, most notably in Asia, they were able to curtail the spread of the virus only by imposing draconian social restrictions. Virtually, in every nook and corner of the world, the pandemic altered or transformed routine life, instituting an epidemiological view of everyday lives.

With millions of people succumbing to COVID-19-linked illnesses, a swathe of issues unfolded during the pandemic and should be examined meticulously: quarantine urbanism, technological refusal to accept empirical evidence, conspiracy theories, anti-mask sentiment, troubling state of healthcare systems, and, importantly, a lack of government accountability and transparency, particularly in non-Western countries such as India and China. While deaths and infections from COVID-19 are still occurring every day, the worst is likely over.

So, where do we go from here? Should the new normal be the new old normal? Are we – as a global society – prepared for the next global crisis of similar or a bigger magnitude? With nations and societies being fragmented, can nations govern themselves differently [and more efficiently] – when the next crisis strikes – from how they did or have been doing during the COVID-19 pandemic?

 

Connolly Park, Voorhees. Summer, 2022.

In his book The Revenge of the Real, Benjamin Bratton, an American sociological, media, and design theorist, argues that “instead of thinking of biotechnologies as something imposed on society, we must see them as essential to a politics of infrastructure, knowledge, and direct intervention. In this way, we can build a society based on a new rationality of inclusion, care, and prevention.”

A didactic attempt to see the whole pandemic in a positive light would be to accept that an individual, a society, or a nation grows stronger through failures. In the United States, where “American Individualism” has been a defining feature of public life for a couple of centuries, there is a need to not allow these revered individual rights and beliefs in self-reliance to become self-destructive selfishness. We can honor and celebrate personal liberty, and at the same time we can nurture a resilient community that promotes individual and community social, behavioral, and physical health to strengthen us to face challenges like a pandemic.
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