2001-07-02 - 10:19 p.m.

The spotlight I have trained on myself is getting to be blinding. I can no longer allow myself my little flaws and excuse them. I must work on myself in every way possible.

If I am to write about myself, presume that others should read about me, act as if my way is better than your way, I�ll have to learn to live by example. I must be willing to live a transparent life, with nothing to hide, nothing to feel guilty of. If I know I am doing my best, I can love myself and be proud.

This girl, Carrie, is helping me realize my flaws. She disappears off my radar, too busy to get a cup of coffee thanks to her commitments, and I don�t push it. Instead, she becomes a symbol. I imagine her � giving herself to her causes in every way imaginable, teaching the children about the problems of Nigeria, teaching English to poor refugees � as an idealist living outside the system. She and her circle of friends, living their sustainable lives, helping one another create a life outside the system, really striving to do no harm. Devoting their energies to the struggles that will make the world a better place, and truly taking pride in their lives. Doing things that I admire, but have never had the strength or resolve for.

But now I have new resolve. I see Carrie and her friends looking over my shoulder, quietly judging me, as I smoke a guilty cigarette, bite into a sausage, drive my car, or go shopping in a store that represents the corporations and not the little man, letting myself contribute to this machine that takes such a toll on the world, on ourselves.

This reflection of myself will give me convictions. I will decide, here, on this page, that I will make a change, and this will be the mark that I must bear, the statement made for all the world to see, that I must live by or be labeled a hypocrite.

So, first things first: I will stop smoking cigarettes.

I bought this pack a week or so ago. I had eight left. Now I have seven. I just smoked number eight on the porch, tapping the ash into a bottlecap left by this weekend�s barbecue.

It is time to lose the old, dirty habits and pick up new ones. I will memorialize smoking and send it into the ashtray of my history. Not such a difficult resolution, seeing as I�ve never been addicted.

I�ve enjoyed it, I suppose. I can remember the first time I really smoked a cigarette, after the first illicit puffs of eighth grade, or the vicarious one or two with some near-strangers in college. It was Manchester, England, when I was off across the world, as far from my family as I�ve ever been, and I needed to feel that anonymity, that freedom that comes with doing something rebellious. Andy and I were two invisible souls on the other side of the world, both having run off to England to see what the world could show us, and we sat out in front of Manchester University and smoked a cigarette together.

We laughed because we could do it, that despite or perhaps because of all the implorings of the world not to smoke, the messages that had been pounded into our heads since childhood, we could smoke a cigarette if we wanted to.

It was the first of many. Each time we explored a new town together, we would light a cigarette to celebrate the town and our adventures through it. Each one was instilled with some meaning, perhaps fatalistic, perhaps with nothing more than the feel of our own decadence.

Then I went back to America and landed in a town in western Pennsylvania, alone at a summer internship, far from family and feeling invisible as usual. I wanted to feel something, feel my life even through self destruction, so I bought a pack of cigarettes and felt the guilty pleasure again, pleasure at proving that I was my own person, that my parents no longer held any influence, that I could kill myself with dirty habits if I wanted to.

I smoked off and on for years, never more than a cigarette or two a day, sometimes going for weeks without one. I tried to make sure that each cigarette meant something, because each represented destruction, the destruction of something in my lungs, the frittering away of my life. I made sure that it would never become a habit, but rather that each one would be smoked as a conscious decision.

I smoked them in Chicago, because I was again anonymous, and I wanted to feel tough on the tough streets of Uptown, I wanted to feel that I was part of that club whose only membership was this self-destructive vice. I wanted to inflict these cigarettes on myself, prove that I didn�t care so much for life, that I could screw up my lungs if I wanted to, that there was some bad in me and you�d better watch out, because I am one dark individual. I needed to deny my perfect, Catholic, moral upbringing.

But eventually, the mystery and the thrill disappear, and you�re left with this little stick in your hands, full of tar and nicotine that you�ve just ingested into your lungs, and it makes you wonder about yourself and feel stupid, even guilty. You feel guilty because you know that it�s a stupid habit, that it�s a crutch you carry around for no real reason, it�s a product of misplaced desires and guilts. You can�t really justify it any more, you�re not young and stupid, you�ve felt your independence and you don�t need to be self-destructive any more. So one day, you make a decision.

I will stop smoking cigarettes.

I will hold onto this pack, keep these few cigarettes, smoke them if I want to but only with the realization that after this, there will be no more. Each one will increase in importance, and soon only the greatest of occasions will be worthy of my final cigarettes, which I keep as a badge of my freedom, that tells people that I could smoke them if I wanted to, but I choose not to. Each day I make the decision until the life without cigarettes becomes habit and I can be proud of myself again.

-

We�re huddled at the edge of the Chicago River, me, my friend Brian and his friend Jason, who I�ve just met. We�re crouching on a leaf-covered incline at the edge of somebody�s property, hoping they don�t hear us whispering and kick us out.

We�ve been biking around Brian�s neighborhood, each of them with their own bikes and me �borrowing� a bike from Brian�s absent roommate. And now we�re here at the edge of the water, following Jason�s lead because he wanted to check out the water, feeling like a rebel, a criminal.

If you look down at the water, where it meets the vines below, you can feel like you�re in the wilderness under the moon. Jason says it feels like Vietnam, though he�s young and he�s never been to Vietnam.

Jason says he would have gone to Vietnam if he had been called to serve and he was at the right age. Then again, if it had come a bit later, he would have gladly gone to jail as a conscientious objector. Either way, he says, he is willing to pay the price for the privilege of living in a country. We owe a price to any society, he says, and we must either pay by obedience to help the cause or suffering to change its ways.

He is young and na�ve perhaps, but there is something to his philosophy, as I listen on the banks of the river. To effect change, we must pay a price � civil rights leaders had to be spit on and beaten, Jesus had to give up his life � before we can hope for society to budge.

We are human beings with the choice of how to live our lives. We can choose to cooperate with the status quo, or we can choose to effect change, realizing that no change comes without a struggle.

As we take off again on our bikes, searching for new spots from which to enjoy the river at night, I warm to this philosophy. I have been struggling with new ideas, new ways of living. When I began, I imagined the perfect outcomes, not realizing that to change, I must pay for it. I wanted change to come easy, but no worthwhile change is easy. And now I have stumbled on this new way of looking at things that makes the struggles of my life seem noble, makes it appear that suffering will lead to reward, that if only I stick it out and pay the price, I will come earn the fruits of my struggle on the other end. And suddenly, as long as I can think of it like that, it doesn�t even feel like I�m paying a price, after all.

-

The next day, Laura and I hike up to Rogers Park to put ourselves on the line; to pay our price. We have our ideals, and we are willing to fight for them, dammit! There�s a rally going on up there. What�s it about? Who cares? We�re there!

The troops are all there, believers from all over the city, making their voices heard against the evils of, oh yeah, police brutality. We�ve got our signs, our chants, and we will march to State�s Attorney Dick Devine�s house and make our views known.

Of course, it�s a subject I know absolutely nothing about, being white and sheltered. Apparently there were some corrupt cops that tortured suspects in order to extract confessions from them, and they were never punished for it. One cop in particular did it all the time, they say. I learn this because we are yelling it at Dick Devine�s house, after following a circuitous route to the park, chanting and waving our signs as we go.

The police have been escorting us all the way, following alongside on foot or on horse, expressionless behind their sunglasses. I try to imagine what the policeman is thinking as he looks down on us, from his horse:

Let�s see, another� four hours till my shift ends? Ah, shit, gotta pick up the kids after work. Better not forget again. Man, I hope this weather picks up. Still, this is easy work. Protests. Police brutality. Heh. They�ll probably get us another training session to sit through, stick it on after racial profiling training, and maybe a talk from the commander that we all know is bullshit, but we gotta...

Us: "No Justice, no peace! No racist, police!"

...sit through to get these people to shut up, these people who don�t know what it�s like for us. Ah, well. Civilians. Just gotta do your job, keep cool, make sure they stay in line. They don�t know any better� I wish I could grab a cup of coffee, though. I could just step out of line here for a minute, take Bessie over to the deli, and� but hell, where would I put Bessie? There�s no hitching post around here. And where would I put the cup when I�m not drinking it? Come to think of it, how would I even get a cup of coffee up here with me? I�d have to be careful not to spill it on her. Have to ask Gary down there to grab me one�Man, horse duty sounds like a lot of fun until you get up here�

And us protesters are doing our job down here, spreading the word about police brutality, some strong in their convictions, others just enjoying the experience, choosing to do this rather than, say, go to a baseball game.

But this is the cynical view. I must find the reason for my cynicism and extract it. Cynicism comes from wanting results now; not being able to see the big picture, not realizing that every war is made up of small skirmishes and you have to take what you can get. It doesn�t matter if everyone�s motives are pure; they are contributing their bodies and their voices; they are paying that price. You have to simply ignore your cynicism and believe, and then you can motivate yourself to action and make a difference.

And we must be making a difference. We are invading Dick Devine�s personal sphere, making him see that we see what�s going on and he can�t allow the police to abuse their powers with impunity. We tell him to come out and answer the charges, but of course he�s not here. He�s certainly made a point of not being here on this Saturday morning when scores of angry protesters planned a march to his house. But even this is a victory; he has been forced to take note of the march and change his plans accordingly. Perhaps the rallying cry against police brutality will resonate in his head even in his absence.

These people marching can see the big picture, or at least some big picture. Some shout about the prison system and police state, boldly proclaiming that this will be the new civil rights struggle. Others fight for socialism, selling newspapers to support their cause and talking up a new world vision to anyone who will lend an ear. To me, standing outside, they are merely one block of society that seems as if it has always been there and always will, pushing in one direction while others pull. But they mush keep pushing to keep society from sliding backwards; they see that there is nothing inevitable about the fate of the world.

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