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White Woman with a Graduate Degree Experiences First World Problems

posted 11 years ago by bababear
61 replies | jump to latest

To deal with her mom's death, Strayed goes on a hike of over a thousand miles to get in touch with her inner self. How wonderful.

When my Mom died (on a Friday) I was back at work 48 hours a week the next Tuesday because I had a wife and three month old daughter dependent on me. When my Grandmother (Mom's mother) had died five years earlier, Mom was back at work teaching a few days later because she had responsibilities.

I'm hardly jealous of White people (and I'm White, too) who respond to situations like this with acts of prolonged navel gazing. But I keep thinking about Cher's wise words to Nicolas Cage in MOONSTRUCK when she slapped him into the middle of next week and told him, "Snap out of it."

Anyone who's interested, here's how it works:
1. Suck in your gut.
2. Put your head down.
3. Tuck the ball under your arm.
4. Run like hell.
5. If somebody knocks you down, get up and repeat steps 1-4.

[–] Valerie_Vance 10 years ago

There's nothing more eye rolling than people complaining about white people's problems. And it's even more embarrassing considering you clearly didn't do your,research. You don't know much about Cheryl.

It's an ordinary high school day. Except that it's not.

[–] tsw453 10 years ago

I don't get the obvious rant from the OP. Yes it is a rant. It is easy to detect the anger in your post even though it isn't easy to do in text. Like everyone else said. Everyone grieves differently. Why do people think they the entire world should follow exactly what they do? People have this crazy, you should live your life the way I do because it is correct, mentality. Good example of how grief can affect you in different ways. My father died when I was 26. I literally watched him take his last breath in the place we shared together in his last 2 years. Somehow I bounced back fairly quickly. A couple of months and I wasn't grieving anymore although I still missed him. At 35 I married someone I had known a long time and she had a 2 year old son. It went really bad and I had to leave her after 10 short months. In that time I got closer to her son than I ever thought possible. I grieved over him for a whole year. It was far worse than losing my father. Doesn't seem likely does it? But that is how I felt for whatever reason. Not everybody is going to be like you and you may as well spend your time worrying about yourself rather than what other people are doing with their lives.

[–] 10 years ago

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[–] Jowston 10 years ago

I like the cut of your gib Baba. Movie looks awful and I won't be seeing it.

"I am surprised Stannis's fleet didn't sink under the weight of his own balls."

[–] Trajanc 10 years ago

I wouldn't get too bent out of shape about it either way. It's not like you are reading some cross referenced or heavily footnoted work. There's a good chance much of the story is just made up bs.

The only thing that really bothered me about the book was how it and other books like it routinely inspire dangerously unprepared people to risk their lives and the lives of rescue staff.

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[–] tsw453 10 years ago

I could see how that would apply to Chris McCandless as well. Although it was kind of nice to shun his lifestyle for the open road and wilderness it is a whole lot easier when you know you can just pop back into society again without any worry about how you are going to do it. He had wealthy parents that could put him back into a normal life in no time. Some people don't have that luxury and would never even consider doing what he did because they would just become homeless.

[–] 10 years ago

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[–] marudd50 9 years ago

Let me guess: You are a Republican. You think that by voting to make the rich richer and the poor poorer that somehow all that largesse is going to trickle down to you. There's a fool born every minute.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty.

[–] Starwarsfan777 9 years ago

Where the hell did politics come into this?

The more I read about Americans, the more I see the opposite of the Republicans moan about the Republicans like children.

[–] marudd50 9 years ago

Checked out a couple of your posts. You poor baby, some woman sure did a number on your little self, didn't she? You obviously hate women. Good luck having a good life with that attitude. You should move to the U.S., join your party, and work to do everything you can to control and belittle women. You'd fit right in.
Beauty is truth, truth beauty.

[–] bpollen 9 years ago

Well, that's kinda the point of the movie. She was at a fork in the road. The trek apparently was her way to think deeply about her life and where she wanted to go from there.

She did not have a good job. She did not have children or any pressing responsibilities. She was wasting her life away with promiscuity and dangerous drugs.

Good for you if you've never come to a fork in the road...death and despair to the left, a decent life to the right. But I guess that means you can't relate to people who do have to come to grips with a bad life and whether they can turn things around, and what they have to do to do that.

Remember that she didn't have a childhood or family to help her be strong emotionally or make good choices. She grew up essentially raising herself. She didn't have the gumption or the tools to "suck in her gut" or keep getting back up after being hit down. She had been hit down all her life. There are only so many times a person can keep going on.

That's what the movie is about. She finds a way to, finally, get up again, and make better choices, instead of continuing down the path of death and destruction.

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] comerb 9 years ago

She spent those 3 months with a new experience and has a story to tell. You worked for another 3 months in a life that probably consisted of 50 years of work.

I'm not really sure what you think you accomplished.