August 21 - Thoughts on Leaving

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

Again with the Hamlet quotes. I wonder if they swirl around in my head so much because I've done the show twice or because they really are so apt for so many situations.

I think it is safe to say for a lot of people, that even the really bad things that have happened to them in their lives (divorce, loss of a job, etc.), that at the very least in retrospect, the event was not one hundred percent bad. Yes, it likely felt one hundred percent bad at the time, but often times, there is some good that comes from terrible things. Divorcing the wrong life partner frees one up to find the right life partner. Leaving one miserable job (by choice or not) allows one to find something more fulfilling to do with one's time. Even those who are the victim or theft or accidents or whatever can gain valuable knowledge later on, or a sense that they can survive their worst fears if they are able to look at the situation in a different light. I know when I was hit by a car while out walking, I felt almost invincible for a little while afterward. I was hit by a car while on foot and walked three miles home after the event. That's kind of a cool thing to be able to say. And now I know, if I see another car speeding at me about to hit me, I can once again use my stage combat training to take the impact in a way that will hopefully minimize any damage. Granted, I am not invincible. But traumatic events can give us tremendous personal strength in the long run.

This is also not to try to minimize some really horrible things that happen in the world, like the mess that is Ferguson right now, or the journalist who was beheaded a few days ago after being held hostage for a couple of years. These things are terrible, and for those people directly involved, I'm sure they would be just as happy going through the rest of their lives never having experienced them. I wish that for them, too.

What brought me to this today is that I am in the process of cleaning a lot of negative out of my life. I do not think it is a secret that there are certain elements of my life that have not been bringing me joy for some time. But as I find myself beginning the process of saying goodbye to the negativity, I find myself remembering the few bright spots that were also associated with those things and those places. There were some nice people. There were some great opportunities. I have some wonderful stories to tell because of these things. Recognizing these positive moments, buried under all of the negative, is making me sad today. Or if not sad, then very emotionally confused.

I have been getting more and more excited about my new adventure in New York in the past couple of days. As I think about myself leaving those ills I have in favor of flying to those I know not of, I am reminded that the ills will not seem quite so ill once I am removed from them by time and space. I may come to think of them as good. Because there is "nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." It's all about changing your perspective.

June 20 - It Touches Me Not

Please note: this is my opinion based on what little I know of the world. I'm allowed to have this opinion, just as you are allowed to have yours, and if your opinion and my opinion don't match, well, that's okay, too.

When the whole Edward Snowden NSA surveillance story broke, I wasn't quite sure what to think. I'm not an expert on any of this stuff, I don't know Edward Snowden or his life, and I'm don't work for the government. So all of a sudden this news story broke and everybody was trying to paint one side or the other as the bad guy and being woefully uninformed, I didn't know which side to take. Not that it is necessary to take sides, but it would be nice to be able to weigh in if the subject comes up at a party or something.

But I found myself...not terribly miffed by the whole thing, and then wondering if there was something wrong with me because I wasn't terribly miffed by the whole thing, so I gave it some thought (though admittedly, I've still not done much research on the subject) and the thoughts that are gelling in my head largely revolve around human nature and personal responsibility. Let me elaborate.

So the NSA has been listening in on our phone calls and reading our emails for the last six years. I'm trying to think of anything I have said on the phone or sent in an email in the last six years that I would be mortified if someone other than the recipient knew and to be honest, I'm drawing a blank. I've flirted a bit. I've sent out I don't even know how many headshots. I've ordered things from Amazon. I told a former friend that I no longer had space for her in my life. I've made new friends with whom I've shared information about myself that is also readily available elsewhere on the interwebs. I've chatted with my girl friends in New York and Texas about the goings on in our lives and what Buzzfeed articles are cracking us up at the moment. I yelled at USPS and UPS customer service employees who were not at all helpful. I can't really think of anything super incriminating that if someone else happened to know about it, I'd be mortified or publicly humiliated or personally destroyed. It's like Hamlet tells Claudius, "...your majesty and we that have free souls, it touches us not..." Meaning if we have nothing to hide, what difference does it make if it becomes unhidden?

And the extension of that brings us around to human nature. That inherent belief that everything we say and do is of the utmost importance to everyone else, coupled with the complete disregard for the fact that everyone else is busy thinking everything they do is of the utmost importance to everyone else. In simpler terms, it's not all about you. Most people really aren't interested in what you have to say. It's like couples with kids finding that they're losing touch with their friends who don't have kids because secretly, the friends who don't have kids get tired of getting together to find that the soul topic of discussion on the table anymore is the children. You think your kids are fascinating; other people don't. (Usually. I actually like hearing about other people's kids because it is a life I don't know but I might have to portray on stage someday, so having something to draw from is cool. But I think it's safe to say I'm the exception that proves the rule, not the rule.)

So let's extend that to the NSA. Let's pretend that hypothetically, there is one NSA employee assigned to read every single email you send and listen to every single phone call you make and that is all that one employee does. After six years of phone calls to your mom to talk about birthday plans for your sister, and emails to your husband reminding him to pick up paper towels on the way home, and the occasional bit of "juicy gossip" you share with your best friend who is having way more sex than you, this NSA employee is going to become dreadfully bored with your life. He doesn't know you. He doesn't know the people you're talking about. He doesn't care about your sister's birthday, your friend's affairs, or your paper towel consumption needs. And for the love of all things holy, he's tired of pictures of your sleeping cat! He went through boatloads of training to get what he thought was a top notch job at this huge fancy security agency and he's tasked with reading your dentist appointment scheduling emails? Chances are, if you ever met this guy on the street, he wouldn't even recognize you or remember that you have a pedicure on Thursday at six. He's trained to look for certain key words, certain phrases that raise red flags, and unless he sees those things, I'm betting he has basically tuned out by now and just keeps reading and listening because somebody is paying him to do it.

Now, I know this isn't actually the case because the NSA doesn't have enough employees to assign one individual to each American citizen. So they likely have computers set up tracking all of this information. You know what? The computers probably care even less than the hypothetical employee did that your brother was a dick for not inviting you to his Friday night poker game. The computers are programmed to scan for certain words and phrases that raise red flags, at which point a live human being might start paying attention. Otherwise, the communication is likely stored on some massive server somewhere that looks like the digital equivalent of where the Ark of the Covenant is stored at the end of Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark. How is this so much worse than using a free online email system like Gmail or Yahoo! Mail, that also stores all of your communications on some large server somewhere that you'd totally flip your shit if it was all suddenly not there? You know what? Now the NSA has a backup of the receipt you got from the wedding cake place so you can prove they overcharged you since they only put in one layer of filling instead of two.

Okay, okay, I get it, it's an invasion of personal privacy to have someone or something (a computer) you don't know and didn't give access to scanning all of your communications. Thing is, if you have nothing to hide, they probably don't care about you and aren't paying that close attention. They're likely focused in on those people who are planning things like the Boston Marathon bombing so they can try to prevent those things from happening. We're all perfectly happy to take off our shoes, jackets and belts when passing through airport security on the off chance someone might be trying to sneak something on a plane. I guess I just don't see how this is so much worse than that. Maybe I've become complacent. Maybe I don't have enough scandal in my life. Maybe I've learned to pick my battles.

And yes, it is possible that there is an NSA employee somewhere out there who built up a collection of the nude pictures you sent to your girlfriend or boyfriend and he's enjoying them in a way that makes you uncomfortable. Personally, I learned a LONG time ago that if there is something you don't want a stranger to see, don't put it on the interweb, don't email it, and don't text it to someone else. Once it's digital, it's hard to get erase, and you never know where someone else might post it.

Which then brings me to Edward Snowden. I don't know him. I don't know his life. I know very little about his background. But I will say this - it strikes me as somewhat cowardly to flee the country before becoming a whistleblower and to then seek political asylum in another country for making a conscious choice to do something you know is illegal, after working for a company involved in practices with which you did not agree for many many years. If he was so strongly opposed to the surveillance, why didn't he quit when it was instituted and make his public announcement then? Why did he wait so long to say something? It strikes me as a power play and a cry for attention. And to be perfectly honest, I would respect him more if he was willing to accept the consequences of his actions as opposed to fleeing and seeking asylum. Because as much as he thinks he's helping Joe Q. Public, he has now alerted any potential terrorist cells within the United States that the government is on to them so they can find other non-digital forms of communication (carrier pigeon, maybe?).

I don't know. Like I said, I don't know the whole story. I don't know the NSA's reasoning for instituting surveillance other than to liken it to taking our shoes off at the airport. I don't know Snowden's motivations for collecting a paycheck (likely a cushy one) from a company he despised for years knowing he would sabotage them later. I don't know the circumstances of his life. I don't know what kinds of emails and phone calls other people are participating in that would be so detrimental to their person/reputation/relationships if overheard by a complete stranger. I don't know if I should be miffed. I don't know if I should think of Snowden as a hero or a villain. I don't know if I should think of the NSA as being helpful or intrusive and underhanded. I don't know. But I do think the NSA likely doesn't care about what online newsletters I subscribe to or have unsubscribed from in the last six years. As one with a free soul (at least one I consider free), this touches me not.

Is that wrong?