The Beauty of Susan

For a long time, I read very little else other than Narnia.

When I was young and first experiencing Narnia, Lucy and I explored it together. Through her, I learned to love Tumnus and the Beavers and Aslan and Peter.

As I grew older, I saw more and more of myself in Edmund, and his redemption brings me so much relief, even as the cost of it scares me more than I'm willing to admit.

The beautiful Susan I never understood. How could she not enter Narnia with excitement? And how could she abandon it?! I was sad and confused and felt her loss as her siblings did, but the joy of Aslan's Country eclipsed those feelings. 

Gradually, I myself moved on to other books, some by Lewis, some not. I read Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, I read Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, I read biographies, essays, short stories, and anything else I could get my hands on. Narnia remained a beloved memory and an encapsulation of my childhood. Susan remained an enigma.

But then...

One day I needed Narnia again. A week before my 18th birthday, I decided I was going to reread the whole series, one book per day. I was going to go back to Narnia as a child one last time. I know that the "18 years old equals adulthood" is an arbitrary convention of our culture, but it still seemed significant and as I read the series again, it really did feel as though I was saying goodbye to my childhood.

Because suddenly, I understood Susan. I related to the fretful way she behaved, the way she took care of her siblings with almost too much attention, and I felt her need to be respected by adults and to act like a grownup, even in a world that catered decidedly toward a childlike attitude. I recognized the way she responded to the magic of Narnia, but lost it so quickly back in her own world. 

I hadn't seen that before. And that understanding made her character so much more important to my perspective on the outcome of Narnia. C.S. Lewis didn't write a "happily ever after" so much as a truly realistic allegory for the real world. Narnia certainly isn't a tragedy--good defeats evil, and all is as it should be--except for Susan. Through the second-eldest Pevensie, Lewis revealed how there are tragic figures even in a happy ending. 

When I finished the story for the umpteenth time, I needed reconciliation for Susan's character. I needed her back in Narnia! Lewis never gave her that redemption, nor did he close her story. The reader presumes that Susan lived on after the crash that killed her siblings and her parents. Perhaps she had to identify the bodies. Perhaps she became successful in Our World, recalling Narnia only as often as she remembered her siblings, who never fully reached adulthood. 

However, for the audience, the rest of Susan's story remains shrouded in the "perhaps" and we'll never know what became of her. And yet, even as her tragedy cautions readers against deserting the faith of childhood, her ambiguity delivers us hope. Because perhaps she did remember Narnia later in life. Perhaps she remembered Aslan's words; that the children were pulled into Narnia so that, in the real world, they would come to know him better under another name. 

That ambiguity is the true beauty of Susan. The tiniest speck hope is there, despite her tragic arc; it is buried in the "perhaps" that finishes her story in the minds of Lewis' readers.

Part of me still needs Susan's redemption.

Best wishes,

Nicole Pendragon

A Mother's Remedy

This story would probably be more a propos to tell on Mother's Day. However, since Mother's Day is only slightly less than a year away, and since mothers deserve appreciation all year 'round. Here's reason #356 why I love my mother.

One excellent component of summer time is that I get to come home and visit my family a little bit. It's great to be back as a whole family again; it's an easy groove to settle into. Everyone's having a great time!

And then... my period struck.

Ladies, you know how this goes. Potential hours of lying in the fetal position, downing the tylenol (or aspirin or ibuprofen), waiting it out, cursing the combination of chromosomes that makes you woman, and wondering if cutting out your uterus would be less painful.

Thankfully, mother nature decided to allow me a reprieve and I slept. After multiple nights of poor sleep, it was a much needed repose. Presently, I awoke and ventured downstairs. Boy was I a sight!

Eyes red and framed with dark circles from lack of sleep.

Face pale as death from nausea and spotted with hormonal battle scars.

Hair completely disheveled, and clutching at my bloated belly, plagued by the last vestiges of the day's abdominal gymnastics, I hobbled into the kitchen.

All my mother says when she sees me is, "Wow! Don't you look gorgeous for someone who's just endured a bout with menstrual cramping!"

Funny thing is, she meant it.

Thanks for the smiles, Mom. I love you.

Best wishes,
Nicole

Google Yourself

Philosophers tell us that mind-to-mind communication is impossible. If Person B wants to know what Person A is thinking, Person A has to articulate it through some physical means, before it can reach Person B, who has to comprehend the information through the same physical medium used by Person A. The implications of this evidently unavoidable predicament is that we can never really know how other human beings perceive themselves. We can only know how other people want other people to perceive them.

Memoirs, diaries, autobiographies; throughout history these things have provided they only means to know what people think of themselves, or at least, what they want other people to think of them. Then, without any warning, a movement swept through modernity that booted memoirs, diaries, and autobiographies from their exalted status as the source of personal information: enter, social media.

Have you ever googled yourself?

Most of us have. Some of us multiple times. Just to check, right?

Some people are blessed with the anonymity that comes with a common combination of given and surnames that renders them nearly impossible to find. Other people share a name with a celebrity, which achieves the same effect. But however hidden it may be, the truth is that almost all of us have, in some tiny respect, personal information, which we have published ourselves, accessible via the internet.  I call it publicly personal information.

Confession: I'm scared of social media.

Before we continue, let me make an important distinction.

• The legal definition of stalking: Criminal activity consisting of the repeated following and harassing of another person. (http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Stalking)
• The cultural definition of stalking: casually (okay…sometimes not so casually) researching another person using the information that can be found on the internet, usually published by the person in question themselves (thank you Facebook).

People engaged in the first activity are criminals and dangerous. Those of us that make ready use of the second are simply curious and non-malicious opportunists utilizing the resources made available by individuals themselves to find out more.

Frequently, within two or three weeks of meeting people—but never right away--I'll look them up online to see how they portray themselves. It's interesting to see a person's profile about himself or herself. It's also scary to see what those media allow strangers to learn about a person without their direct knowledge.

For instance, did you know that Instagram has a function that attaches location information to a photo? Mobile users may access a map view of a person's profile that presents each picture as a pin showing where it was taken. This means that, for the user who has this function enabled on a public profile, anyone who wishes can identify every spot that the user stopped to take a picture and post it online.

Again, it all depends on how much information a user allows the platform to access, but many times the platform doesn't divulge its intention. The Instagram app simply asks for permission to access location data, camera, photo history, and contacts at installation.

If you've read my bio, you know that Nicole Pendragon is not actually my name. Am I paranoid? Maybe a little bit. But if I am, my paranoia is not entirely unfounded.

I have a limited bubble of social networks under my real name, meaning two: linkedin and twitter. I'm not counting Google+ because I don't use it at all, and I only have it because I have an email and Google does that super annoying thing where it creates a page for you if you want to use any of its products.

I'm actually a pretty heavy twitter user. As a news junkie, I can follow all my favorite news sources, influential people, and select companies, neatly consolidated into one place. It's convenient for information consumption, but as a producer, I fall significantly short.

I like Linkedin because it’s a professional platform that allows me to stay connected to people I'm not necessarily friends with, but want to be in contact with nonetheless. Recently, I was reading an article about how to use Linkedin, and the author asked what happened when you googled your name. As mentioned beforehand, I'd done that before, but it had been some time, so I did it again. Now, I'm not one of those fortunate souls with a generic name or a celebrity affiliate, so the first several google results (for my real name) are actually me. I expected that the first to pop up would be my Linkedin page. To my considerable surprise, I discovered that my twitter handle, from which I have posted a grand total of five tweets in the course of less than a year was the first entry.

At that point I realized that I need to do two things:

(a) use twitter more

(b) use it for purely professional-grade activity

Perhaps you've run across the considerably debated question about whether or not it is ethical for employers to google their potential employees before hiring. I don't understand how that's even a question. In the first place, how could such a barrier be legally enforced? Also, what is unethical about it? All that can be discovered on the internet through facebook, twitter, instagram, and other such sites is information posted with the full control and consent of the person involved. And, depending on the position, the publicly personal details of an individual could be anywhere from moderately to extremely relevant to the employer.

I fully expect that any potential employer will have looked me up on the internet well before I interview. Today I have discovered that the first thing they will see is my activity on twitter. When I say that I intend to use twitter for profession-grade activity alone, I don't mean that I want it to be a twitter-version of my Linkedin activity—it’s still a personal platform, after all—instead I want my twitter page to be indicative of my personality, without revealing my personal activity.

It's interesting what you can learn about how a person chooses to represent themselves on any platform, including elevator speeches, professional profiles, and non-professional profiles such as their social media.

Facebook, Twitter, and the like sometimes get a bad rap for the idea that they allow a person to represent a false image of themselves (for any number of reasons; preserving anonymity, boosting self-image, etc) to the public. That certainly does happen, I grant you (it's what I'm doing right now, isn't it?), but more often than not, that bad rap is undeserved for two reasons.

Point A: People are unlikely to represent themselves falsely. Most people on social media connect themselves to people whom they know in person. Automatically, there's a accountability factor built in. Any falsified information posted to an online social platform is likely to be seen, and possibly revealed, by someone who knows better. Research suggests that the "paper trail" created by written words or images posted to a public platform creates quite the deterrent against dishonesty. Any lies posted online are generally not big enough to signify.

Point B: False representation is not always a bad thing. I write this blog under an assumed name so that I can keep a record of my writings in a public forum (my own form of accountability) without a breach in my privacy. Even in the case where a person is choosing to represent himself or herself falsely in order to garner a better image for themselves than they believe their own personality could, you can learn what they value in who they wish they were.

Social media allows us to access something that only autobiographies could provide previously: a person's self-perception. Philosophers will tell you that mind-to-mind communication is impossible, and thus you can never know truly how a person perceives themselves. However, the sort of statuses that a person posts to Facebook, or the pictures they upload to Instagram can reveal what they wish they were, and what they wish others to think about them. If you know that person in "real life", you suddenly have another perception of that person, a perspective separate from your own. False or otherwise, a person's social media profiles will always augment the information you have in real life.

So compose your version of how others ought to understand your self-perception; read between the lines about how your friends choose to present themselves. Consider how that contrasts with what you already know about them.

But don't be malicious about it. That's just not cool.

Best wishes,

Nicole

Christ in Grammar and Syntax

Oh yes, it is time to get nit-picky! Because being verbs deserve their own rant.

If you've ever received any writing instruction at all in your life, chances are you've heard being verbs viciously denounced as weak, lazy, and restrictive. They acknowledge only bare existence, you've heard. They convey inherent lack of effort, they warn you. And, being verbs limit an object to a single correlation.

Yes, sometimes yes, and emphatically yes to those statements, respectively.

Let's back up a bit. The English language has ensnared us native speakers in a syntactical prison that requires us to organize our sentences into subject (the actor), verb (the action), direct object (the thing being acted upon) word order. If you're not Yoda, or a poet, deviations from that structure generally mean incorrect grammar. However, when an author uses a being verb (am, are, is, and the moods and tenses thereof), the direct object is no longer a direct object. Instead, that noun is called a predicate nominative. It functions essentially as a second subject.

For instance, a subject-verb-direct object sentence such as "Jane sees Spot" cannot be reversed to read "Spot sees Jane" without changing the meaning. Certainly the two sentences may both be true at the same time, but they express different scenarios entirely. On the other hand, the sentence using two predicate nominatives such as "That dog is Spot" can be reversed perfectly without changing the meaning whatsoever: "Spot is that dog." The predicate nominatives and the being verb allow "Spot" and "that dog" to be mutually inclusive terms. To be sure, there are other dogs, and other creatures named Spot, but now, that particular dog is inextricably linked to that particular name by grammar.

That is the often underappreciated beauty of the being verb. It takes two separate terms and binds them into one entity. For some reason, aficionados of the English language disapprove of such limitations.

Now, I am a native speaker of the English language, but I've never taken English grammar. So my writing and speaking and other wordly communication suffers from the colloquial contaminants running rampant through all casual conversations. Sometimes I think I'm better with Latin and Greek grammar than I am with the English variety (though, that's not saying much).

Admittedly, it's been a while since I've read anything in Greek, but I pulled out my Graecum Novum Testamentum (Greek New Testament) and gave it a read the other day. Doing so, I was struck by what I noticed. There are copious amounts of being verbs in the Bible written in association with God.

Back to English for a brief moment. Generally, when we describe a person, we use an adjective to associate the attribute with the individual. For example: "He ruled as a just king" or "She behaves like a good friend" or even "I read a truthful article." These might even be phrased with being verbs: "He was a truthful king," "she is a good friend," or "it was a truthful article." In these instances, the author is taking two concepts—justice and king, goodness and friend, truth and article—and linking them. They still remain separate concepts, but in describing the king, friend, or article, the author takes justice, goodness, or truth and applies it to the subject. But an adjectival application does not have the same force as an inextricably linking verb.

That is not the case with the being verbs of the New Testament. God is love. God is light. When Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life,” he didn't mean that there is some concept outside of himself that applies to him, he means that that thing begins and ends with him. There is no concept of truth somewhere outside of God that we could take and apply to him: he is truth.

Human beings cannot comprehend God. We are imperfect, he is perfect. We are corrupt, he is holy. We are inherently lacking, he is inherently complete. Those concepts are central to the entire point of the Gospel. We cannot comprehend God. However, we can comprehend, in essence, what "love" is. We can understand what "light" means. We can grasp what "truth" entails. It's not just that we have a "loving God,"—though we do—or a "truthful Saviour"—though that is certainly true as well. We have a God and Saviour outside of whom there is no such thing as love, and no concept we could call truth. By using being verbs to describe his person, God reveals to us a key element about his nature: he is.

Being verbs reflect the very person of Christ Jesus, who bound God and Man into one, inextricably linked, being. They bridge the gap between two concepts and make them singular, just as he did, and they reveal to human beings the nature of God to the fullest extent that we can understand, exactly as Christ did. I love being verbs! They're like little forms of Jesus embodied in grammar, and deserve a bit more credit than we, users of the English language, give them.

Best wishes,

Nicole

P.S. Listen to the actual professionals who know how properly to use and abuse the infuriating rules of the English language. Especially if they're the ones giving your work a grade or deciding whether or not it goes on to be published. My little tirades are just the rantings of a slightly miffed amateur who noticed something other languages have that ours doesn't!

An Open Letter to English Professors

I have a question for anyone who is or was ever a professor of English. Do you ever get sick of reading being verb replacements?

Words such as:

Holds, held, will hold

Remains, remained, will remain

Exists, existed, will exist

Lies, lay, will lie

Because I am excessively bored, uninspired, and unenthused by my own propensity to use one of these words when a simple being verb would do quite nicely in its place.

Being verbs aren't the only victims. How about the not-so-subtle and entirely clunky evasions of the passive voice? What about the infamous "[insert antecedent] with which [insert verb]" construction. So much runaround in an attempt simply to put a preposition in its proper place.

Students are sometimes a lazy class of creatures, which yes, I admit it, sometimes carries over into our writing. And yes, being verbs convey a restricted meaning which do sometimes inappropriately limit a subject to its corresponding object. I would toss the passive voice in the same category: to use the subject of a sentence as the object of the verb does frequently limit the power and precision of a sentence. Yes, the ease of their use means that these grammatical constructions suffer from overuse due to the laziness or sheer exhaustion of students who have multiple essays due within the next twenty-four hours, with none of them finished and nowhere near enough energy to care. Those conditions do not denote skilled composition; being verbs, passive voice, and prepositions directly before periods only exacerbate the problem.

However, those professors who universally and rigidly banish the employment of these constructions create yet another problem that they then have to deal with. When students cannot use being verbs or the passive voice, and must continually restructure sentences that naturally convey their ideas in order to prevent the dreaded prepositional misplacement, they are deprived of the opportunity to communicate their thoughts in a more natural, clear, and stylistically stimulating way.

Having afflicted myself with more than seven years of Latin, I can attest to this fact: Cicero, one of the greatest rhetoricians to walk this earth, took absolutely no issue with a full and extensive employment of the passive voice. Yet nobody criticizes him. If you're going to tell your students to write like Cicero, I'd suggest loosening the cords. By all means, mark it off when it's laziness! But when the message of the composition is more naturally articulated or emphasized by the careful placement of a being verb or the passive voice--or a being verb in the passive voice--let it alone.

Best wishes,

Nicole

P.S. The "prepositions are not words to end sentences with" rule is just dumb and should be forever stricken from all grammar curricula. Colloquial English has long permitted its users to end sentences with prepositions and the formal adherence to its prohibition causes clunkiness and ultimately impedes the clarity of its syntax.

The Sixth Love Language

In my last year of secondary education, one of my favourite teachers told me that she thought my love language was sarcasm.

After some reflection, I believe that her estimation is remarkably accurate. The vast majority of my close relationships are held together by mutual affection and an inordinate amount of sass.

I have used her categorization to this day and it is fantastic. I want to start a petition to add a sixth love language.

Best wishes,
Nicole

The Importance of Being Persistent

For the last couple of days I have been lethargic like you wouldn't believe. To make the long (and rather unpleasant) story short: I was accosted by severe motion sickness returning home via a bullet-shaped metal bird, which also scrambled my sleep patterns, in turn bequeathing me with a cold. The ultimate result was a woman with a complete lack of motivation to do anything at all.

When my sleep patterns are disturbed, everything is disturbed. This is primarily due to the fact that the human body operates by a series of patterns and balances. When these systems are skewed, exciting little dysfunctions like insomnia arise. My insomnia probably finds its cause in a hormone called cortisol, a stress hormone that activates a state of liveliness.

This oh-so-scientific graph (notice the sarcasm) depicts how cortisol levels ought to behave in a perfectly normal adult human being. It begins rising in a steep incline at about 6am, peaking at 9am or so. From that point onwards, it drops. Thus, by the individual's bedtime, it's back down to its low, nighttime levels. Each person requires some semblance of this process in order to become alert and active throughout the day.

The incredibly scientific graph (again, sarcasm) changes a little bit for teenagers and young adults. During and shortly after the pubescent years, the activity of all the growth hormones in the body take precedence over the maintenance hormones. Thus, the teen graph looks more like this:

In this graph, cortisol rises to its peak much later and reaches its low point much later as well. That is why you're likely to find your resident teen sleeping long after the cock has crowed and awake many hours after everything of a sensible nature has gone to bed. Shifted though it is, this pattern is still natural and completely acceptable (even if it may not be compatible with today's public-school start times).

Now, my cortisol map (just about as scientific as the first two) looks like neither of the former graphs. Its activity (with the regular levels superimposed in blue) looks more like this:

As you can see, it never really peaks. It just kind of slumps itself to a barely functioning level, and then oozes slightly downwards. In comparison to where it ought to be, it's much too low in the morning, and much too high in the evening. Hence my problems sleeping (at bedtime, cortisol levels are still telling my body to be somewhat active) and motivating myself during the day (because, although too high at night, it isn't quite stimulating enough at daytime).

Thankfully, the human body is equipped with more than one stimulating agent. This other hormone is adrenaline, and it kicks in when the body is prompted to sudden action by an outside stressor. At least, that's how it's supposed to work.

Unfortunately, in my off-balance body, adrenaline fulfills the role of primary stimulant. This means that instead of receiving quick spikes when needed, I'm basically running on adrenaline all the time. The silver lining to this dysfunctional raincloud is that when I'm at school, at work, or with friends, I have the energy to behave like a human being. The downside is that when I'm on a break (without anything to stimulate the adrenaline reaction), I'm basically a breathing vegetable.

There are steps I can take--am taking--in order to correct the cortisol imbalance in my body. Physical health was not really the point of all this anyway. The woe-begotten tale of my neurological predisposition to lethargy functions as an unfortunately necessary precursor to what I really want to talk about: the importance of persistence. So here we go!

I like to think about how to change the world. I also like to throw myself "what-if" parties about the things I could do were I to get enough sleep. Once I get over myself, however, I like to read about people who did make a positive impact on this biosphere we call home. Men and women such as Jim and Elizabeth Elliot, Winston Churchill, Mother Teresa, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Eleanor Roosevelt, George Washington, Martin Luther, Margaret Thatcher, and St. Augustine of Hippo are my heroes. But I think that my favourite world-changer of them all is William Wilberforce.

This man lived in late-18th/early-19th century England, in an era when the slave trade still existed and prospered. Cruelty, not just to people with different coloured skin, but to all the lower classes, and to animals as well, was common, accepted, and enjoyed.

It wouldn't be fair to say that William Wilberforce recognized all this and condemned it from the outset. Really, it isn't quite fair to hold him up as a beacon of everlasting persistence--as I'm attempting to do--because he didn't protest the cultural cruelty in the beginning, and he wasn't consistent and determined. He did, however, become so.

That isn't to say that he wasn't ambitious or accomplished. The young Wilberforce did well in school and became the youngest MP in Parliament at the tender and minimal age of 21. He was charismatic and well-spoken; effective in his pursuits. But he wasn't exactly responsible. Wilberforce led a rigorous social life that frequently caused him to be reckless in other areas of his life. But that would soon change.

Sometime in 1785, William Wilberforce converted to Christianity. Beginning in a lengthy carriage ride with a childhood mentor by the name of Isaac Milner, Wilberforce became convinced of the truth and importance of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Soon afterward, he noticed the horrors that his culture had adopted as habitual and formed two goals:

1. The Reformation of Manners
2. The Abolition of Slavery

In other words, he wanted to transform his culture into one that observed virtue and praised it, and he wanted to free the downtrodden from their unjust oppression.

Do you know, dear reader, why William Wilberforce was such a remarkable man? It's not because he was the youngest MP in Parliament or because he was so eloquent. William Wilberforce is a man of note because he set two impossible goals and saw them both fulfilled in his lifetime and by his hand. You can probably guess how.

Sheer persistence.

To accomplish the first, Wilberforce installed habitual excellence into his life. He was already a well-known and well-liked fellow, being so publicly active; people watched him. So, he gave up all but a few of those clubs that were so popular back then in which men indulged themselves in all manner of talk. Instead of meeting with other politicians to socialize after church, as was common, he went home to his family and made it a point to be involved in his children's lives. He treated everyone he met, whether beggar, servant, or nobleman, with love and civility. Others began to follow his lead. William Wilberforce had effectively made goodness fashionable in a culture that celebrated cruelty.

The second of his two goals: the abolition of the slave trade and the emancipation of slaves, was an even more active and arduous process. Wilberforce worked closely with a group of activists, including Thomas Clarkson, and more loosely with a group of colleagues, including his friend and England's youngest Prime Minister ever, William Pitt the Younger, to outlaw the slave trade and free the slaves of England and her territories. It was grueling, tiresome, frustrating, and frequently fruitless labor. After over three decades of political movement, Wilberforce&Co succeeded in outlawing the trade; three days to the day of his death, William Wilberforce witnessed the Slavery Abolition Act, which banned slavery forever. Through the consistent and sometimes covert actions, Wilberforce paved the way for a revolution in the definition of freedom for mankind.

These days there's a lot of talk about dreaming big and believing in yourself. When I tell myself I can't make a difference, it's not for want of big dreams or self-confidence. It's because I feel limited by my inabilities. I'm predisposed, I say, to lethargy because of my cortisol patterns. I make excuses because of my insomnia, my influence, my past, my present, my future: whatever it is I can get my hands on to explain why I haven't done, or am not doing, anything noteworthy. When I do that, I'm missing the point entirely.

It's not about predispositions or talents or even obstacles. It's the ability to persistently plug away towards the finish line that really matters. That sort of passion and determination is what pushed Wilberforce. That's why he succeeded.

One thing that I left out of my regrettably abbreviated biography of William Wilberforce was his poor health. From the early childhood, Wilberforce was a fragile individual, predisposed to illness with poor eyesight and a failing constitution. He suffered from these ailments, and more, all throughout his life. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, one of the most influential men in the world was also one of the most diseased. Take heart, there's hope for us yet.

There's always something that will try to stand in your way. To employ the cliche, there will always be mountains. But those can't stop a person who persistently keeps going. Like adrenaline, big dreams and big belief are important to get you started, but just like the cortisol that wakes you up everyday without fail, only consistent and determined action will lead you to succeed.

So my friends, take a page from Wilberforce's book: walk with God, a chip on your shoulder, and all the persistency you can muster. "The world stands aside to let anyone pass who knows where he is going."  

Best wishes,
Nicole

P.S. There's a biography called William Wilberforce by William Hague, and one called Amazing Grace by Eric Metaxas that you really ought to read if Wilberforce interests you, and he should, because he was clearly one of the most incredible men to walk this earth.