JJ's World Views

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  • My thoughts on “An Evening with Malala Yousafzai”

    For those who know me they know that it was here story that inspired me to get the mental help I needed for my Clinical Depression, head back to school to become a teacher and hopefully join the Peace Corp.  So when I heard she was going to be speaking here in Minnesota I was absolutely  thrilled at the chance to see her speak.  I bought my ticket early in June and the had already sold out the cheap seats, that kind of sucked.  That’s ok I figured if I am going to an event like this I want to get close to the front anyways.  I ended up 8 rows back on the left side of the stage, damn close,  that rocked.  The weeks went by and I couldn’t wait.  I had my nephews over the 2 nights prior and was so excited about the upcoming event that I wanted to share her documentary with them, in order for them to understand why this was so exciting for me.  Joey my 14 year old nephew got bored and played his video game.  Mason age 10 watched it with me and was asking questions about her, he really wanted to try and understand, and I did my best to explain things to him about what she went though.  He is such a cute and loving kid.

    Then on July 26th I headed to the Target Center here in Minneapolis to see “An Evening with Malala Yousafzai”.I ended up fighting through traffic, it was busy as hell for a Tuesday going in then I realized that the Twins were playing right next door at Target Field.  Yes, we are the home of target here in Minnesota.   I still made it there with a half hour to spare, which was nice.  As I walk into the arena I see a stage to nice comfy chairs and a little end table.  The back was lit with a blue bubble like lighting.

    IMAG0080[1]
    Image from my seat before the Anyone came out to speak.
    This was the first time I had gone to a speaking engagement.  Let alone go there by myself.  I expected the auditorium to most likely be packed with women of all ages.  The thing that surprised me was how many men were there, it was about a forth of the audience, all different age groups. It looked like a full house.

    Then the interviewer, , came out to give the introduction to Malala.  She talked about her background, which most people who were their most likely know I would assume.

    Next Malala comes out to a standing ovation, I am not a clapper but damn my hands hurt after I sat down and wiped the tears from my eyes.  Yes I am a cryer folks when I am happy,sad, or inspired, But I digress.  After the ovation calmed down she spoke about her thoughts on Minnesota  and what she has experienced while she was her, all the while cracking jokes about how “NICE” we are here in Minnesota.  She talked about the young Somali women she met and what they discussed like how comfortable they feel here and how welcoming we have been to them in Minnesota.

    Malala with Somali women
    This image is from Everything Somali

    The interview begins between Allie Shaw and Malala.  They tackled some of the differences she sees between Pakistan and her current home of England and here in the US.  Malala talked about her experience’s  over the past few years and what she had learned.  Malala knew very little about any other religion except for Islam.  She  had some words to say about religion in politics and compared it, I felt, to the money in politics problems we have here in the states.  It seemed to me she that she felt neither should have a role in politics.  This did not surprise me to much at least the religion, hell she has seen what happens when you mix religion and politics up close and personal.  This is something here in the US are battling ourselves, just not as severe YET.

    The one thing she liked to joke about was her little brothers and they pick on each other.  I remember from the documentary “He Named Me Malala” how lovingly they joked with one another, it was refreshing to see.  She also admitted that she didn’t know that WWE was fake till she was 17.  This took me by off guard at the time but, now that I that I think about it, it really should not have though she has 2 little brothers who probably love wrestling entertainment.  Hell, I like the stuff from time to time when they have decent stories and talent.

    So yes, I was not disappointed with this event at all.  If you get a chance to see Malala Yousefzai you should definitely do so.  Of course this is coming from someone who is a bit of a fan boy.

  • Random Thoughts and Ideas I

    Pokemon GO! is all the craze right now.  How can this game going to help the human race? These are a question that just popped in to my head.  This Go! gets people out there walking which promotes health and good living.  People are meeting new people and immediately have something in common. This promotes community and lowers the fear of the other.

    Here is what I think they should try next.  I would like to see completely different sets of Pokemon for each country, state or continent.  This would get people to start exploring this world more.  This would promote travel.  If they set it up right they could push a cultural exchange through the game as well, with each team having their own team of developers to ensure the pokemon would have the cultural relations to the area. They could have a pokemon dedicated to each sub-culture in that area.   This I know would be a tremendous undertaking.

    This is just one of my crazy ideas to help change this world.  I know that no one Ideas will fix everything in this world.  There is no cure all.  But I feel if we as the human race combine the best of our ideas and build on them that we can make this world better than what it is today.

    While writing this I just realized something about myself. I don’t just want to be a better me, I want to be a better human.  For this is the one thing we have all in common.  This is the starting point of any talk about peace in this world.  This is the most obvious of places to start when talking about any injustice.  Then move down to civilian and authority.  It is time for #civilanlivesmatter.  Here is the thing I agree that the black community has been targeted by the police, in the past and now days.  There is another traditionally targeted group that is not talked about that that is the mentally ill.   This gives the group more people to come over and put more pressure on the our representatives in government.

    We all forget that Government is a tool.  It can be neither good nor evil.  It is all in how we use this tool.  What happens to a tool if you just leave it outside, it rusts and becomes junk.  What happens when you take care other tool and keep it out of the rain, it will last a long time.  This is like our government so many of us have left it out in the rain that it has frozen, locked up.

  • Personal Goals and dreams

    1. Finish college                                                                                                                                                 a. Finish the next 2 semesters                                                                                                             b. Complete the transfer curriculum                                                                                                 c. Transfer to Metro State                                                                                                                     d. Complete my BA in Social Studies Education                                                                             e. Get teaching licence
    2. Join Peace Corp
    3. Make more friends                                                                                                                                       a. Go back to school                                                                                                                                 b. get out to the parks                                                                                                                             c. Volunteer tutor                                                                                                                                     d. Volunteer in general
    4. Get out of the house                                                                                                                                   a. Go back to school                                                                                                                                 b. get out to the parks                                                                                                                             c. Volunteer tutor                                                                                                                                     d. Volunteer in general
    5. Live life
    6. Help others                                                                                                                                                     a. Volunteer tutor                                                                                                                                     b. Volunteer in general
    7. Grow as a person
    8. Clean up my debt
    9. Travel                                                                                                                                                                a.Take the study abroad course Story Telling Down Under                                                           i. Get passport DONE                                                                                                                             ii.Get visa                                                                                                                                                   iii. Join the Peace Corp
    10. Explore other cultures                                                                                                                               a.Take the study abroad course Story Telling Down Under                                                           i. Get passport DONE                                                                                                                            ii.Get visa                                                                                                                                                   iii. Join the Peace Corp
    11. Fight my fears                                                                                                                                              a. Fear that people won’t like me for who I am                                                                           b. Fear of the ocean I don’t want to be shark food.  lol                                                               c. Fear of being alone                                                                                                                             d. Fear of being forgotten                                                                                                                     e. Fear  that I am not strong enough to achieve my goals
    12. Gain self-confidence
    13. Meet Malala Yousafzai
    14. Meet the Dali Lama
    15. Bring people together
    16. Promote Empathy
    17. Promote peaceful solutions to problems
    18. Become a writer
    19. Quit smoking, sugar and caffeine
    20. Cut back on meat and greasy food
    21. Gain knowledge through experience and research
    22. I want to help make this planet safe and a little, not a lot, scary for my niece and nephews than the world we have now.
    23. Organize the random thoughts in my head.
    24. Work on becoming less hypocritical (this is something the whole world especially here in America)
    25. Be more self-reflective
    26. MOST OF ALL BE KIND

    These are some of the things I just a few things I am working on in my own personal development.  This is also a list of things for me to choose to write about in this blog.

  • Who and Why

    Who and Why

    Hello, I am JJ ODonnell.  This post is about who and why I am starting this blog.  I have two main reasons for starting it. One I hope this can be a form of therapy for me and hopefully can help others with this blog.  Second is to practice my writing skills.

    When I was young I used to like to write.  I would write poems and short stories, unfortunately many of them have been lost in my many moves over the past two decades. Then for some reason I stopped in my early 20’s, most likely I just got to wrapped up in the chaos that was my life for so long.  I have been diagnosed and dealing with Major Depressive Disorder.  I have a hard time finding enjoyment in many things,  I am always tired and I hated myself and others. I have secluded my self in my home, except for work and even that is hard at time and of course the really bad thoughts about myself.

    Over the past couple of years I have been trying to get stuff together.  Before that my depression had taken a large toll from me.  I had 2 hernia surgeries in the span of 2 years. My family had moved back home to Minnesota from Florida, where I was still living with my with and step daughter.  This is where I really felt trapped I loved my wife and step daughter, I still do care for them dearly.  I also despised living in Florida  and missed Minnesota so bad.  I ended up moving back to Minnesota and filed for divorce.  She was not a greedy person despite what some people would have you believe.  All she wanted was for me to be happy and get the help that I needed.  The only material thing the divorce took from me was the lawyers and court costs.   I could go on but I will save the rest of the details of my descent in future blog posts.

    Fast forward 2 years, In 2014 I here on the internet about this Young woman who stood up to the Taliban in Pakistan so that girls had a right to an education.  Malala Yousafzai’s story stirred something in me.  “With all the death and destruction in this world here is this kid at the age of 15 was shot and came back a couple years later to win the Nobel Peace Prize.”  I said to myself.  ” This young woman can take on a ruthless extremist like the Taliban. Look at me I am almost 40 and have not done?” I asked myself again.  So I decided to make a loose plan to get me on the right track.  What am I good at? What inspires me? And what do I want to do?  I realized I wanted to go back to school to become a teacher, specifically Social Studies.  I also realized I want to try and help people as much as possible.  So, I also want to join the Peace Corp and help out around the world. I also feel if you are going to teach about other cultures I should at least experience a few other cultures than just the American Culture.  This way I can be able to put context into my teaching tool chest.  I also had to get help to battle through my depression and went to the VA.

    Which leads me  to here. I just finished up a group counseling class at the VA (Veterans Administration) Hospital here in Minnesota.  The class was called CBSST (Cognitive Behavioural Social Skills Training). In this class we are taught how to think of things in different way using critical thinking skills.  I started this class 3 months before I started back to college, in September of last year.  Now I am About to go into my Third semester of college at the end of August.  I use school as a form of therapy for me.  It is a place where I can exchange ideas with people and become a custom to more social situations.   Instead, of hiding from the world.

    I am doing this to learn as much as for therapy.  So if you have constructive criticism it is welcome.  If you have questions or need clarification about anything do not be afraid to ask.

  • Election Prediction

    Election Prediction

    After watching this video Jimmy Dore video I started thinking  and wrote them down just to see how others may feel about the situation.

    Listen to the terminology Bernie is using. Bernie is saying “Hillary believes” Not “Hillary agrees to fight for”. If she were actually was going to try and fight for these things, that is what he should have said. He is acting like a politician now. I do not trust what went on behind closed doors between her and him. It would not surprise me if there were some real threats toward Bernie and Warren. Hillary has already proven she can get away with anything with what went on with the FBI. Everybody is worried about Trump and no one cares what Clinton except for us Bernie supporters. This may sound a bit insane But it has to be said. I feel Hillary Clinton could be possibly worse than Trump. Where basically everyone would be fighting him on starting World War 3. No one is going to try our soldiers if they disobey an order like that from him. Hillary on the other hand has barely anyone who will fight her about any war she wants to start. I am still not convinced Trump is not a plant by the Clintons. This election is a corporate coup de tau I feel. Everything seem to work in Clinton’s favor with the exception of Bernie, until now. What we are seeing now is a show for us. Clinton says “Look at Trump he is insane. We cannot have him as president.” Trump nails her for a while on the FBI scandal, The one thing the Republicans were right about. Then he will back off for awhile. The Polls will go up and down to build suspense. Then with a slim victory Clinton wins the election. This may seem extremely conspiratorial, but this is the way I see things going down as of right now. I reserve the right to update this Hypothesis if any major changes to the race occur.

  • Cultural insanity

    Cultural insanity

    ideo that got me thinking

    I have heard the argument that the states should be divided by other Republicans before. I have just one question. Do we really trust the south with Nuclear weapons? I mean really think about how insane the right wing is in the south. They, and I am using a generalization because that’s how a lot, yet not all despise people who are not like them and are fearful. Ignorance is not bliss ignorance is fear wrapped in false beliefs spread by people who lust for power and control. We have a tendency to fear things and people they do not understand or want to try and understand. People who are self aware know this they try and change themselves to become a better human being. My biggest bitch about the U.S.A. is that as a nation we refuse to acknowledge our own failings as a country. We think we are better than everyone else. This is not true. I feel what we need is the a country’s equivalent of a psyciotrist. If we were to judge our country like we would a human, this country would have many disorders, Including but not limited to schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, narcissistic sociopathic tendencies with an addictive personality.
    Schizophrenia, I know someone who has this condition. My biological father I have not seen the man since I was 3 years old, but in my 20’s I was able to have my first contact with his side of the family. This is when I found out about his condition. I have talked to my father over the phone and have had decent conversations with him. That was until about 3 – 4 years ago when around Christmas time, right before my divorce was final. He had gone off on me because either he really hated lawyers of he did not like the fact that my marriage had failed. I am not quite sure. He blew up on me after I had told him that I had gotten a lawyer for the divorce. It seemed it affected him more than me. Had said that I was no son of his, and that he would kill me. I did not know what to do. I knew I shouldn’t let it affect me because I had not seen the man in almost 35 years at that point. I also realized that who the fuck was he to judge he was 26 when he knocked up my mom at the age of 17. From what my mom had told me he also had gotten extremely violent with me when I was younger and was alway jumping in and out of my life. So, my mom told him to leave out of my life for my safety.
    Bi-polar I have dated a couple of Bipolar women and I am assuming that trying to date a bipolar man is about the same. They would be good for awhile happy energetic, then from out of nowhere they would turn getting extremely agitated at the smallest thing for no logical reason.
    Narcissistic A-moral sociopathic tendencies: In my youth I had a fascination with serial killers and cults. I had noticed that most of the serial killers and leaders of these cults had in common, they were all in it for themselves and said to hell with everyone else. They used ignorance and fear to control and influence people to coax them in to a trap or to do despicable things, like mass suicide, child molestation, cannibalism, murder, destruction and conning people out of money.
    These are just a few mental disorders I feel we have as a society.  In our society I feel we need t look more analytically in on our nation and start to see the true reasons all this chaos that we as a nation are a part of and start looking for real solutions.  One of the ideas I have is a class I feel we should integrate into our schools, is a class on critical thinking .  Learning how to think in a more critical manner helps us to see other peoples perspectives better.

    Another thing I feel we should focus on is getting people to live in other countries for awhile.  No I am not a saying abandon the U.S.A., but living in other countries could help us to figure out how we can better our country through seeing things the way other countries see us.  They may also have policies that work over their that could work over here as well.  This would make us a more well rounded country as a whole.  This would also help with the race divide in this country.  If people were to live with and experience things that other people go through they would not be so quick to judge others that are not like them.  Of course there would still be those who would try to push a religious agenda, yet if the government were to implement this we could make sure this does not happen for there is a separation of church and state therefore anyone working as a representative of our country would not be able to push that agenda and could be reassigned, retrained and have a mental assessment done.  If they still continue then they are sent back.