Actually, this is more a forewarning than an introduction. When this assignment was announced, I decided to write a paper about perfection--a notion which many college students are faced with. I had planned to discuss my own fear of imperfection in relation to my ethnic baakground, our society, and religion, and thus approached Part A with that in mind. While researching, however, my view of imperfection changed drastically, providing a contrast between Parts A and B of my paper.
This is not a paper telling you what to be, or how to be it. And I am not going to try to convince you that my opinions are as fact. What I do hope to do is share with you information and thoughts which have impacted me, and allow you to watch the way in which their influence has altered my views.
When it eame time to choose possible topics for my term paper, my thoughts immediately foeused upon two opinions whieh have impacted my life as a whole, while having the brunt of their blows profoundly affeeting me in the present. These opinions have been in the forefront of my mind reeently, and are elosely intertwined. The first belief, regarding rape and sexual assault, I developed after experieneing. The developed belief, which enters around the notion of perfeetion--and my sometimes overwhelming fear of imperfeetion and failures--I learned through family, soeietal, and religious teachings.
During my first semester in college I was sexually assaulted by a man whom I considered to be my friend, and who was also my classmate. Though I was not raped, I did not escape the experience unseathed. Being victim to every conceivable aspect of the act preecding penetration--such as being trapped beneath him with my wrists pinned above my head; having my clothes stripped from me: being touched, and forced to touch him, in intimate, sexual ways--carries the same weight as being raped. It seems all sexual assault victims are clumped together by most "outsiders," and are thus prescribed the same negative) treatment; we are force fed nasty, foul tasting medicine to cure us of any weaknesses or flaws which encouraged this disease--this epidemic--to attack us.
I believe my animosity becomes apparent at the mere recollection of all the victim blaming statements which I have been attacked with, or heard hurled at other sexually assaulted women and men. Convictions such as, "You must have been wearing something revealing," or, "If this really happened you have to press charges. If you don't, his next assault will be your fault, too," were doubly devastating to me after the trauma I'd been through--not to mention the guilt and shame I had already burdened myself with, stuck fast to the notion that the incident was a result of my inadequacies as a person. This last idea was reinforced when, a few months later, my boyfriend-at-the-time assaulted me in nearly identical fashion--despite the fact that he knew of my past experience.
Recovery for sexual asfiault survivors takes approximately three years--at the end of which we supposedly are able to fully accept wbat has happened to us. It is what I call the "crunch period," the time when we are most vulnerable and volatile to outside forces acting negatively upon us. For me, this time has been charaeterized by periods of self-hate, during which I blame myself for the actions of the two men who assaulted me instead of rightfully blaming them.
Initially, I was drawn to the idea of exploring my admittedly warped cognitive structure in the hopes that I could change my pereeption of myself and my assaulters through the Piagetian eoncspts of assimilation and accomodation. I felt a strong desire to reiterate to my mind that ours is not a "just," fair world that only punishes or negatively treats people who deserve it. I also know I need to get past the hump of cause-and-effect that poses a roadblock to my learning. Because both men are similar in appearance--blonde, blue eyed, six feet tall--I automatically fear anyone fitting or resembling their physical types. Also, since one was a football player, the other a psychology major, I have difficulty trusting undergraduates in either area. I have formed warped cause-effect chains that look like this:
| Blonde/ Blue Eyes/ 6' Tall | -----> | Sexual Assult/ Hurt |
| Football Player | -----> | Sexual Assult/ Hurt |
| (male) Psy. Major | -----> | Sexual Assult/ Hurt |
although I realize on some level that these chains are not accurate or applicable to my life outside of these two instances.
I chose not to work with this topic, however, because I have been focusing on it extensively in my work with C.O.R.E. (Creating Options for a Rape-free Environment), an on campus, volunteer organization. And, frankly, I feared and abhorred the idea of becoming emotionally linked to, or exhausted by, a term paper.
My focus for this term paper will be on the notion of perfection, or, more accurately, the fear of imperfection. As a Japanese-American citizen, I was taught by my parents to always strive to reach my full potential while at the same time living a life of relative conformity--a common characteristic of AsianAmerican families. It was also assumed that my parents' set of morals, values, and beliefs would naturally become my own--that I would or could absorb their experiences via stories, lessons, and verbal warnings and thus become a perfect person without making any mistakes, failing at any venture, or getting hurt in any way.
Combine with this cultural, familial structure the strings of Christianity and I have become a puppet in the hands of religion and my parents. My individuality is wooden and stiff, yet I dance on; animated by the rules of society, speaking in the voice of my mother and father, walking in sensible Christian clogs. Yet I feel that exploration and experimentation are natural, healthy, and definite parts of the trial to becoming a fulfilled person.
I cannot grow as a person if all my knowledge comes from other people, if I never experience anything for myself. I will simply remain a puppet imitating a person. Perfect, perhaps: perfectly dead, perfectly unreal, perfectly unhappy. But it is not true perfection, I feel, to merely memorize and mimic the choreography of excellence. We must instead make ourselves faultless--or as near to it as posslble--through learning and experiencing. If the dancer is perfect, the choreography will be impeccable. If only one performance is perfect, the dancer still has much work to do.
Though I strongly believe in experimentation and experience, I also fear falling once I remove the training wheels from my life-bicycle. What if, during my quest for self-fulfillment, I make a mistake, or fail in a trial? How do I cope with my imperfections? And what do I do when faced with risky, potentially unsuccessful situations? These are the guestions that plague me.