A Small Place - My reaction to Chapters 1 & 2

     After reading the first two chapters of her book, I get the sense that Jamaica Kincaid has a lot of resentful feelings -maybe even hatred- against tourists in her country. To me, this group, the "tourists" represents an extensively wide spectrum of people that I, personally, would not dare to classify all together as the author does. I mean, after having been to Antigua myself, I get the sense that not all "tourists" there are the same, since all kinds of people from all kinds of places visit this gem of an island in the middle of the Caribbean every single day, wether it be on a cruise ship or any other mode of transportation.
     However, she still makes this generalization all throughout her book. I believe this to be a great disadvantage for her, not only as a writer, but also as a human being. Having such a limited point of view makes her experiences and thoughts so prejudiced, that this may prevent her from fully taking in and learning from her own life. Then again, one has to stop and think about the relativeness of it all. The truth is that we all carry our own set of experiences and ideas, those who define us and have molded us into the person that we are now. Which means that even my own liberal point of view about all of this, all this giving the tourists "the benefit of the doubt", could be a result of the limitations caused by my own perspective... since Jamaica may lack some knowledge as a result from her limiting standpoint, but she also must possess some knowledge from her own experiences that only she can account for.
     As I kept reading, I noticed that Antigua's history has a great number of similitudes from that of Puerto Rico. We also were colonized, slaved, robbed, and the list goes on... or rather, our ancestors were. Although some of our circumstances were similar, I don't share any of her resentful feelings towards neither Spain nor the U.S, which would be the analogous countries to U.K. in this comparison. Then again, my reality may be a lot different than Jamaica's. Not only are we speaking of two different countries with similar, but at times very different sets of circumstances, but this book was also written during a completely different moment in history than the one that I've had the opportunity to live through. From her book, I feel that in Antigua racism still plays (or played, at the time written) a great part in society's structure. Us Puerto Ricans are so mixed by now (and this is very evident by the physical characteristics from everyone on the island), that it's hard for racism to be as tangible, I guess.
     Regardless of Jamaica's envious feelings origins, I still think that she may have taken her grudge too far. By living under a constant battle against such a broad group of people and holding on to the past, she's only making her own life more difficult and reliving a part of her worst unhappiness. I've always been a firm believer in this: "we can't control what happens to us, but we have the power to choose how it affects us and how we want to react to it." Life would be more enjoyable and the world would probably be a more beautiful place if we were all more captious with our feelings and worked on discarding or working on those that serve no good. Then again, we all know that's easier said than done.

The Small Place of Jamaica's Point of View

     Sometimes certain things from our past or particular events in our lives make us feel like we've hit rock bottom so hard, that it may feel like it's extremely hard to recover. This is what seems to be happening to Jamaica Kincaid in her essay, "A Small Place". It's interesting how everything that occurred in the history of Antigua has affected her so badly, that she's still extremely resentful after almost 500 years.
     As readers, we get the hint that she's not too fond of us from the very beginning. Of course, here she's generalizing and assuming that all of us are tourists in her land. On top of this, here goes another generalization: we're ethnocentric, self-absorbed pricks with a huge ego who live under the effects of eternally blissful ignorance. Of course, I'm paraphrasing here. My point is that Jamaica Kincaid doesn't only seem to dislike tourists, she's also convinced that she has us completely figured out. Both of these generalizations affect her point of view, limiting it and preventing her from seeing the full picture. Of course, the same could be argued backwards, as our lack of empathy or first-hand experience as an Antiguan may serve as a perspective limitation as well. But that's a whole different story.
     Getting back to the author's view, at one point she even says her and her people felt superior to the bad-mannered europeans who went to Antigua to live. As she does this, she may be even lying to herself in order to make up for the fact that she actually feels inferior to them and hiding her own insecurities. One could say this about many passages in her writings, but then again these thoughts could also be coming from the ethnocentric, self-absorbed prick with a huge ego inside of each of us.
     From Kincaid's perspective, we also get the sense that she strongly rejects everything british when it comes to defining her cultural identity, although she admits that the British have had a great cultural influence upon Antigua. However, she clearly does not identify with this herself, as certain things don't make sense to her anymore, such as praying to an English god on Antigua's independence day from England. Simultaneously, she also relates being ill-mannered to being "un-Christian-like", which may seem like a bit of a contradiction. In reality, it seems like Jamaica Kincaid's issues with her cultural identity began after she started questioning the origins of her customs, but she was already so used to these customs that it seems like they became a part of her that she's constantly battling against, trying to let go.

Noticing the unnoticed: a final reflection on the Journey Journal

     It's been eight weeks since we first started our Journey Journal in class. As a result, I hold in my hands a recollection of most main events that occurred in my life during this period of time. This may seem funny to you, but I somehow feel different. I feel like I'm a different person from the one who wrote down that first entry... isn't that weird? It's only been a couple of weeks, how can I already feel different? Who we are is not a permanent state, but an active process. We change who we are all the time, it's just one of those journeys that we're so used to, that it's hard to notice we're experiencing it at all. It's sort of like being on Earth and traveling around the sun at 460 meters per second... [pun intended]. :P

     Not only do our identity and personality evolve continuously, but in order to be who we are, we need to first choose who we want to be and then constantly remind ourselves of it. Having it all written down, making each moment so concrete by permanently turning it into ink, makes me think about one of my favorite subjects: time. So tricky, isn't it? It appears to be linear, only it's not (or at least we think it's not). How could so many different things happen to me in just eight weeks?
     I've got a pretty intense and busy lifestyle by choice, mostly because of the mixture between my work and college life, but also because I can't stay put for one second and therefore insist in not only juggling a million things at once, but also working out every day and keeping myself active. But when I say there's been a lot going on I'm not just talking about all this, but also about all the ups and downs in my mood and internal journey as well. Geez, I had no idea us women were that complicated! Reading back on it, I'm amazed by the roller coaster of emotions we go through each day. I don't know how we do it... heck, I don't know how our significant others keep up with it!

Sounds familiar

     All joking aside, after completing my journal I felt a tremendous amount of gratitude. I realized (yet again) that I am so lucky for all the great opportunities in my life, as well as the beautiful people that walk by my side. With the hustle of our daily lives, sometimes it's easy to forget these kinds of things. I found that taking ten minutes out of each day to meditate upon every event, check in with my inner self and keep a record of it all was highly therapeutic. The fact that I had to write every thought as it popped into my head (and many times choose between competing thoughts) played a great part upon making me notice those things that I gave more importance to than others and making me understand my own process of translation between the world and how I internalize it in my mind. Time flies, and sometimes it can make life seem like a flash of residual memories from random events. Writing this journal really helped me tap into each feeling, each thought, and solidify all of these memories, making them remain more vividly and granting me access to greater depths of my soul.

In conclusion... ^

My Dreams

 

Recovering insomniac, the perks of being a highly energetic specimen...

     To me, dreams have always represented a mysterious psychological phenomenon that can be both entertaining and sometimes a little scary as well, but that has always sparked my curiosity. Where do they come from, what do they mean? Many have tried to come up with answers to these questions. Some people believe certain dreams to be a sacred message from the universe, while others view them just as a product of our imagination or a mere reflection of our subconscious. I think they're a little bit of both.
     Although I like to think of myself as a woman of science and logic, some of my own personal experiences with dreams and spirituality have convinced me that, maybe sometimes, they do mean a little more. This particular experience, the dream-writing exercise, helped me understand a lot about what was going on inside my mind. In my case, my dreams helped me see my innermost feelings and worries. I believe analyzing dreams help us understand ourselves better, it puts us into contact with our truth.
     In my recent dreams, I noticed a lot of arguing between me and other people in my surroundings. Initially, this didn't make a lot of sense, since I've actually felt at peace with the people in my life lately. However, sometimes you just have to dig a little deeper. After doing so, I realized that in my dreams I was always arguing with people I didn't actually know, with strangers. Then, things started making sense, as this could be an indirect representation of my own feelings. I've often been a bit rebellious when it comes to my personal beliefs and my way of life. I don't think it's necessary to follow all of our society's strong suggestions on how to think, talk and act. The fact that I sometimes feel like I think differently from many people, like my ideas and beliefs won't be accepted or understood by others, has often led me to feel like I have a sort of ignored and unperceived (by others) dissonance with the world.
     Most times I can't even remember my own dreams very well. After questioning why this happens, I have learned that we hide secrets from people all the time. Mostly, we hide secrets from ourselves and we call that "forgetting". So, writing down my dreams has been deeply insightful, as it has helped me in my most important journey, that of self-discovery: the journey to my true self.