Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Concientización

I finally started watching the new season of Orange is the New Black this week. I'm about halfway through, and once again I'm blown away, by the all-in performances of the cast, by the intricate plotting, by the humane writing. Every morning I watch an episode or two, and it feeds my thoughts for the whole day.

It's been a while since I've gotten lost in someone else's story like this. I haven't been reading much lately, or watching tv or movies. I'd forgotten how therapeutic an experience it can be.

I have this tendency to get so wrapped up in myself, in my own thoughts, my own worries, that I become my own little world. My world shrinks down to just me, and then every problem that appears on my horizon looms like a thundercloud. And I'd forgotten that stories have the power to yank me out of that.

I wrote a long time ago about my philosophy professor, Gregor, and about the article he had us read about a reporter who sees a young child in a garbage dumpster and has an out-of-self experience. Se saca de si mismo - It takes you out of yourself. That's something I need, desperately, on a regular basis.

Stories aren't just an escape for me, from my own troubled mind, they're concientización. Concientizar is one of those non-English words that is so much more elegant than the clunky English equivalent: "to make [someone] aware of [something]; to raise awareness of." Stories make me aware of the world outside me, or more precisely the world inside other people. I need that, now more than ever.

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