The Sideline Sanctuary...Therese vs. Eco Warriors and the American Dream

Eco Warriors. They love a good protest, living in trees, letting creatures live in their hair and not using tampons? I remember being wildly fascinated as a child when my Dad took me to visit some hanging out of the trees at the Glen of the Downs bypass. They looked like aliens but talked like people. One man had massive snakes growing out of his head, another tried to make me drink seaweed juice and I thought in that second-this wasn't going to be the life for me. Fanta tastes better.

When I look back now and realise the gusto it takes someone to physically shed everything they are surrounded and sheltered by in the world to go live in a forrest to prove a point, I can't help but be astonished. For a while I dabbled with protests myself. At 13 I started up an unsuccessful petition against a certain millennium spike that would appear on O'Connell Street. Having collected 1,400 signatures against it in one area alone I thought I'd at least get some kind of an official letter telling me my anger had been registered with the Taoiseach. I really believed I could stop it.

At 15 I was on the front lines of every march against the Iraq war. I was too cool to walk with my family so I donned the latest cringeable 'Bush Sucks' tee shirt and walked with my long haired boyfriend to go rage war on American foreign policy. This went on to transform itself into my Leaving Cert Art painting,the same year (I had just turned 16 leaving school). I painted an Iraqi prisoner at Abu Ghraib P.O.W camp, head covered with a sack, tied to a crucifix and dangling on an electricution death aid, a form of torture they were using against prisoners at the time. American soldiers had recently been forcing Iraqi prisoners to burn copies of the Koran upon punishment of death. They had also been safeguarding the many oil refineries of Iraq as we waited for them to dig up the Weapons of Mass Destruction. My painting depicted this as American soldiers pulling a wooden horse of Troy towards a burning oil field. Following the Leaving Cert I got my art projects rechecked. I had been awarded a C on the grounds that my painting was 'too politically challenging'. Free thinking apparently does not get you points in Leaving Cert Art. I had written letters upon letters of protest against the War on Iraq to everyone I thought would listen. I really believed I could stop it.

As a 23 year old living in 2011 I can't help notice the conflicted states I find myself in all the time. It's frustrating to remember the politically active naive little lady that fancied herself as the next Aung San Suu against the sexually active vodka bemused fan of Meet The Kardashians and American Apparell I am faced with today.

At what point do we decide not to stand up anymore? Have we grown weary? Did we never care in the first place? Or are we happy in our sanctuary watching abismal fates dealt out to our fellow citizens of earth from the comfort of our Sky Box? I would like to think I care. But when does it become more to me than the newspaper I'll buy the next day? It was lovely to spend the day recovering from my latest hangover watching the Japanese Earthquake unfold before me on Friday. When I'd had enough humanity kicks to the stomach, I monged out infront of a re run of America's Next Top Model and made another Annadin on the rocks.

It's easy to argue about what bitches America can be, I love a conspiracy theory as much as the next sucker...but at what point are we willing to give up the lives we  know and want and go do something about it? When I hit back down to earth I'm always faced with the reality that half of the jobs I work at and seek are for American companies, my favourite designer is Calvin Klein, and someday I hope to outrage my kids with explaining that in my day Lil Wayne was actually pretty ghetto for a rapper. I shall put them to sleep with these tales I hope, from the relief of my New York City sky liner that I screwed alot of myself over to attain.

Life is just too peachy on the sidelines? Fools rush in where angels fear to tread? Its hard to stand up for what you believe. It's harder to give it up altogether. The enemy has become alot bigger and closer to home now, do we fight for what we want?  Or fight against it?

The Aftermath of College and such advice....

You study, survive on a diet of coffee and coke and any other warped energy drinks, study some more, get the grades, don't go out, study, form opinions, form questins, get your essays published, study some more, dump your boyfriend, fight with your family, keep the head down and finally come out top of your class...Boom! Success. Right?

College is a bubble too important and great to burst. It acquaints us with many things we never knew about and gives us the opportunity to really get to know what we are all about...so why do I feel more disillusioned than ever?

No one ever told me that I'd still be surviving from a job I didn't need to go to college for 4 years later, no one told me the economies of the world would crash and leave me picking up the pieces, no one told me that underneath a deep concern for human nature lay a liquor liver soaked Paris Hilton screaming to be set free.

When I take my degree apart (a B.A. in Drama Performance) and begin to break it down into acquired skills, the pessimist in me is often faced with the harsh reality that I am 4 years on, exceptionally good at a sustained humming noise and balancing on one foot.

I often think back on exams, one which I was made hold my breath for two minutes, another where I pretended to be a cheese grater for an hour, and think...well frankly, what was I thinking? How did I imagine this would get me anywhere elegant in life? Perhaps that I deserve my fate as a bemused 23 year old working a full time capitalist slogger? Surely at 19 some hazard light was shining its way into the future?

Recently, as I continued another one of my prolonged searches into the quirks and fascinations of life I came across an interesting take on the fear of heights. Half of people who suffer from this fear are infact not afraid of falling but...jumping. When I think back on my time in college I recall my fearless belief in everything I was learning. I was soaking it all up and jumping with it. Perhaps I will never stand in front of a board room now and show them what a mean impression I can do of a panther giving birth, but I sure as hell know that whatever about the lo's that ensued in the aftermath of college, I render a fearless belief in expressing and listening to opinion, acting on impulse and jumping into the unknown. College gave me the courage to imagine without limits or boundaries and indeed to know myself in this way too.

I am currently faced with the horrifying reality of not knowing what is to become of me?  At one time it all seemed so certain and backed up by a piece of paper framed on my wall. But I have grown so weary of thinking about how life will never work out how I planned it to that I have decided to give up in a sense. I cant overthink how shocking it is that I am self trainig as a costume designer rather than playing Ophelia at the RSC any longer. I can't overthink any longer how every day I loathe reading reports on figures and consumer fascinations so jarring with a distant belief that I would some day play Maggie in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof at the Donmar Warehouse. I can't overthink anymore what an injustice has been done to those of us who worked hard to graduate and got slapped in the face with a country who told us it had no need for us anymore. I refuse to, so I've decided to dim the headlights and take a leap of faith if you will. I do not know what will happen us, but I hope in the times when we are giving ourselves a leathering with the WHAT WAS IT ALL FOR whip, that we remember how fearless we once were and how experience with dark times can, combined, make us champions of our futures.

An exercise in movement claass one dreary Monday afternoon is something I believe I shall take with me on every giant leap I come to in life. Our lecturer entrusted us to close our eyes and run to the end of the room, an exercise wich ultimately put your own safety at the hands of your peers. It was up to them to shot STOP! before you collided with death. Nobody got hurt, all survived withot scratch nor smack. I hope I jump. I hope we all do. I am scratched, I know we all are. Someday I hope to look back on life and be content with giving it all my best shot. Being young is not the party I had in my head. After the nightclubs, its sometimes such a challenge to go along with all the amalgamations that shape us but I am faced with the reality of who I once proved I was, and who I still am. She is there to remind me how much harder I will just have to work to take the necessary jumps. Hopefully we can learn to trust ourselves. I know what I'm doing, though it takes courage to admit.