A Tug of War

I have been reading about Jane Fonda and the end of her marriage to Ted Turner. At the time, it was widely alleged that the cause of the break-up was her newly-found faith (she became a born-again Christian in 2001; he has been reported to be anti-religion). Both she and Ted Turner have since said that the main problem was a lack of communication and not religion. He said he was upset that she didn't talk to him about it, while she has claimed that she feared that he would talk her out of it if she had.

I understand what it's like to have faith so young and fragile that you worry that the slightest attack will completely snuff it out. So you try to protect it and stay away from negative influences as much as possible.

However, Ted and Jane would not be the first couple with almost diametrically opposing perspectives (in 1 or more areas) who have successfully lived together (or at least appeared to do so), so what makes the difference? Is it having shared values that transcend a particular faith? Openness and communication? Flexibility? Plenty of humour? Or something else? I suspect that it probably comes down to a mixture of the above.

My musings are not just in reference to faith; it could relate to attitudes to life (e.g. Adventurous & Risk-Taker vs. Fearful & Cautious); political views (e.g. Liberal vs. Conservative); values (e.g. Feminist vs. Patriarchal).

And this brings me to the next point: where do you place the person who has views that would ordinarily be considered conflicting? For instance, being a Christian and a feminist? At a conference last year, I was reminded that as feminists we need to embrace all women into the movement irrespective of individual situations, abilities and sexual orientations. As a Christian, certainly not all things are acceptable. I've always been a big proponent of safe sex for people who are sexually-active and not married. As a Christian, pre-marital sex is a definite no-no. I have always felt strongly that a couple should be equal partners in their relationship. However, while men and women have equal standing in God's kingdom, within the family unit, the man is the designated head. So, this leads to another set of internal wranglings and I suspect these will go on for me for a while.

As a naturally introspective person, I am constantly analysing and questioning. I believe it was Socrates who declared that the "unexamined life is not worth living", and while I agree that digging below the surface is important to do, it is also very tiring.

So what to do? Live a life governed by one set of rules so that there will be no contradictions in any of your views? Be or partner only with people who share all your fundamental values, so there is no push and pull? So many more questions added to my already full head......

By the way, I am always interested in finding out about women who are both Christian and Feminist, so I'm pleased to see that Jane Fonda has a blog. I'm going to check it out, though from a cursory review it looks like she she's more comfortable sharing about her activism and professional life than her faith.

Word to the Wise

Read this in March's issue of Marie Claire:

It's amazing how much easier it is to pursue your dream when you remove certain obstacles - like common sense.

(Michele Shapiro, Fact-checker turned race-car driver)

The Pursuit of Balance

I was talking today in my office about why many people seem to find more time to spend on social networking sites, like Facebook, as opposed to their blogs (if they have one).

Reasons we came up with was that social networking sites are a very easy way to connect and catch-up with friends; they tend to be less 'work' and more 'fun'. How else can you explain how much time you can spend checking out peoples' photos and commenting on them, when spending the same amount of time composing a blog post is unthinkable. Then, of course, blogging involves a lot of writing and most people I know do not like to write. Add on top, everyone's seemingly busy schedule, well, blogging goes right down to the bottom of the priority list.

This led us to discussing time management tactics. ST shared that she jots down ideas for blog posts on paper, in the bus on her way home, and on her phone. She also types out her posts in MS Word and copies and pastes them into Blogger when she gets online.

I used to do many of these things, but have definitely slacked over the years. Blogging more regularly for me usually meant late nights spent composing posts. Once I decided that I no longer wanted to sacrifice my sleep, that put paid to me almost daily blogging.

This makes me think about how we can achieve balance in life. My conclusion is that real balance is almost impossible to achieve. Something has always got to give. Something suffers slightly. From time to time, we swing between devoting too much time to one thing and less to some others. For me, right now, my blogging has taken a bit of a back seat, but the pendulum will swing back sometime.

Speaking of balance, I came across this article on S&F Online, titled Exploding the Myth of Balance, or Superwoman Bites the Dust, which explores the idea that women can have it all, i.e. a perfectly balanced life in which work and family lie easily alongside. It looks at two women - both feminists - but who made very different career and family decisions, and how they came to terms with their choices. It makes for an interesting read, because it examines that all too familiar situation when our ideals do not align with our realities, and we find that we need to make some difficult decisions.

Modern Love

I wanted to share Modern Love, one of my favourite columns, published in the New York Times about love and dating in .... what else? .... the modern world.

Updates

- I'm back home and enjoying catching up on sleep.

- I can't believe that we're so close to Christmas and the end of the year. I went to Ikota Shopping Complex on Friday and was momentarily taken aback by the number of shops with Christmas decorations and selling Christmas cards. I can feel harmattan in the air, with the heat and dust. Also, I noticed that there are more ants towards the end of the year. And they're usually trying to climb all over me.

- I took out my recent kinky twists (my signature do) and thinking about my 'Christmas do.' The Christmas do is a fairly new concept for me; never having distinguished between hair styles at any other time of the year. It's time for something completely different.

- I'll be getting the latest season of my beloved favourite show The Wire. And to get ready, I'm re-watching season 4. I'm giddy with anticipation.

- I've been very dedicated with my return to book-reading. I recently finished an anthology of stories about women written by men called We-men (edited by Nduka Otiono and E.C. Osondu), and started Cinnamon Gardens by Shyam Selvadurai. It's a collection of stories set in Sri Lanka, a country that hasn't featured in much of my reading.

- After the FTX workshop, I'm really psyched about learning more about free and open source software, particularly Drupal and Linux. So I guess that will be on my to-do list for 2009.

As 2008 Marches On

Tomorrow (almost today now) is July 1st. Where did the first half of the year fly to? Well, hopefully for most of us, it was a good start to the year.

For me, it was a year of changes and new beginnings. I left my old job to set-up an NGO. So far, so good. It's been an amazing journey so far and I pray for better times ahead. It's like I've heard said; if you take a leap of faith, somehow the road rises up to meet you. LOL! Well, it better, otherwise that would not be a pretty sight at all.

The Innocence of Youth

Indeed it seems like all I do these days is link to other bloggers' post. Perhaps not quite, but getting there.....

Anyway, I loved reading this post. Writer Tayari Jones wrote about finding a memento from her youth and how she was reminded about how fearless she was in her youth: she applied for every grant she heard about; sent out her manuscripts with wild abandon (I might be paraphrasing rather too exuberantly myself); and generally had loads of confidence to spare.

Aaah, the innocence and joy of youth. It's a time when you still believe that everything is possible and just because you REALLY, REALLY, REALLY want something and because you deserve it, then you *should* get it. In due course we find out that life doesn't exactly work that way, but at that stage our almost blind belief that everything will work out well strangely enough ensures that it frequently does.

Life as I See It

My friend Y moved to England over the weekend with her family. She has her reasons for moving and while I will miss her, I also understand.

That has got me thinking about life and setting goals for yourself. Being in school was exciting, because I was constantly learning new things, meeting new people and being challenged in a myriad of ways. Starting work was somewhat similar, but after a few years I think that, like with a lot of people, stasis sets in. Even in the best of jobs where you are regularly taking on new responsibilities, the other aspects of life can get somewhat routine. So it's home, work, home, work, home, work. And then some social engagement on Saturday and church on Sunday.

Then you have to take into account the other peculiarities of life in your particular location. Here in Lagos, it's horrible traffic, hardly any electricity, bad roads, noise, pollution and chaos. Sometimes, it makes me sit and wonder Is this it? Is this it for the rest of my life?"

I posed this question to my friend M some years ago and she responded matter-of-factly "I'm afraid so. This is it!" That answer was too dreary for me to even contemplate at the time and so I chose to believe that there had to be something more.

So, fast-forward a few years later, and life is not quite so grey. Occasionally some exciting events puncture the monotonous blanket of life. And I realise that I need to continually set goals. Once I've achieved those (Lord! I make it sound so easy), I make some new ones. For the most part though, there is a sometimes stifling sameness to my day-to-day life and I long to do something that will throw the whole damned comfortable routine out of kilter. Sometimes I want to pick up to another continent and start all over again and experience the excitement and scariness of adapting to a new life. Sometimes I simply want to take a vacation. Or read a book. Or do something I've never done before. Or meet someone who is totally different from everyone else I know.

Life is what you make of it, or so they say. So, what do I want to make of my life now?