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The Road Less Travelled
Author: Sharif Khan  | Posted: 01-02-2007 | Comments: 0 | Views: 257 | Rating: (50)  (?) 
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference."
- Robert Frost
I watched Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, a very controversial film on Hitler's 1934 Nuremberg Rally put on by equally controversial Toronto film connoisseur, Reg Hartt, at the Cineforum (a make-shift theatre in his home). The movie blew me away. It was a powerful, real-life portrayal of Hitler's propaganda machine and the horrifying consequences of mass media manipulation. An eerie chill went through my spine as I saw aerial footage of column after column of endless soldiers marching through the streets of Nuremberg. Little German boys and girls hailing the Fuhrer with innocent smiles and outstretched hands of youthful idealism. Little German youths beating the drums of death. Hitler parting a sea of loyal soldiers. And watching a nation mesmerized by the spell of this diminutive, unassuming, and rather plain looking monster.
What really hit me though was Reg Hartt's commentary after the movie ended. A lady had kept coming to the viewing of that movie, over and over again. She had attended the viewing over sixteen times. When he asked her what she found so fascinating about the film. She told him that she was the young smiling girl in the movie looking down from a rooftop at Hitler's parade. She was with her Mother, Father, sisters, and brother. They were waiving the Nazi flag and cheering Hitler on. They were Jews. She was the only survivor in her family.
What flag are you waiving? What herd mentality have we accepted without further thought, without scrutiny? I challenge you to take the road less traveled by. It is uncommon knowledge that gives rise to uncommon leadership.
Do something uncommon. Go to the library and pick out a book that you would never touch in a million years. Watch a film in a genre that you rarely see. Attend a lecture on a topic that would make most people go, "Huh?" What is one thing you can do or experience this month that is uncommon? Go do it.
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hii my sister of age 26 years, loved a guy 3 years back, my parents were not supportive to this, later because of this she lost her academics for 1 year after that sith struggle she managed co pass out, she is still loving him but he is not..now she lost her job.my sister doesnot respect my parents daily there will be quarell between my mom and my sister. my mom will be crying always. now i dono what to do please help me to correct the situation in my family.
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But my brother was never touched, because my Mother protected him like a she-bear. She would set me and my sister up for beatings too. She'd wait till Daddy came home and tattle every single thing we'd done wrong during the day and he'd beat the crap out of us. Then he started cheating on her and she found out and one day, she just packed us all up and took off to Texas.....as a punishment to my dad. It wasn't a year after that, that she threw me out of the house, at age 15. I met my first husband, who carried on the beating tradition, but he was wealthy and I had everything I wanted materially. I never had to worry about money. I stuck it out for 28 years...26 year of marriage, 2 years of living together.....only to have him get a much younger woman pregnant and divorce me to marry her. I was fortunate because right at that time, my grandparents died and I inherited part of a family farm. So I moved back to the town I was born in. At first, it was like paradise. The farm was split between my Aunt...she got 50%, my sister got 16 1/3 percent, my brother got 16 1/3 percent and I got 16 1/3 percent thereabouts. I should go back to my Mother at this point. She never forgave my dad for cheating on her and harrangued him and his parents until the day he died for money. They were wealthy, her family was poor. She felt that they should fully support my brother, even though dad was on his third wife. My dad's parents bought everything for my brother, land, a nice home, a garage, a barn, a vehicle. When they died they left us all money and the farm. It was not enough though. It is never enough when it comes to my brother. They stipulated that the farm should never be sold, that we would start a corporation together and the land and everything is all under all our names in deed and title. My Mother was mentally unstable. She was always threatening suicide. One time I had to call her Mother over to help me because she was sticking her head in the oven, trying to commit suicide. I was 14 then. Once my dad came to visit and they got into a fist fight and she was screaming for me to call the police and I had to have the police come and drag my dad away, crying. I lived through horrors that nobody should ever have to live through. I became an alcoholic and drug addict, until at 28 I overdosed and nearly died, I had a mild stroke. That was enough and I've been clean and sober ever since. Flash forward to today. My Mother has gotten even worse. She's now 74 years old and has craziness going on that makes her younger days seem sane. It started when land prices skyrocketed down here. She decided she was going to make us all sellout, so she could have my brother's share of the farm to take care of him. We're talking probably $750,000 a piece but taxes would come out of that. I don't want to sell, my Aunt doesn't want to sell..my sister is wishy-washy sometimes she wants to hang onto the farm, sometimes she wants to sell, my brother doesn't want to sell. Mother had my brother declared legally incompetent, just to take his inheritence away from him. When I refused to go along with her plot....that's where it all got crazy. She's tried to hire a lawyer to sue me, she sends me hate mail, she sends me hate e-mail, she leaves nasty messages on my phone. She's sent letters to all my neighbors, to my church, telling people what a sorry, crappy daughter I am. My Grandmother (her mother) and I have always written to each other. My grandma is 97 years old and still spry. My Mother threw a fit with my grandmother and told her she couldn't write me anymore because I was sending subliminal messages to my Mother in my letters (I didn't even know Mother was reading my letters to my grandmother, she doesn't live with her). My Mother has harranged and harrassed me for over 3 years now. I haven't spoken to her or replied to any of what she is doing to me other than one letter, telling her to get psychiatric help as soon as possible. That made it even worse, as I've heard she carries that letter around like a cross, telling everybody what a crappy daughter I am. My attitude is that my happiness is just as valuable as my brother's well-being and I shouldn't have to sell my shares of the farm if I don't want to. I don't know what to do about my Mother. Why won't she leave me alone? I'm not bothering anybody. Next problem, I married again. My husband and I don't fight or argue. All the same, we've got a bizarre relationship. All of our money is separate. I don't even know how much he's got in the bank, but at one point I saw a savings statement for over $100,000. I work, 10 hour days. I'm poor as a church mouse. Sometimes, I don't have money for food. He buys his groceries, I buy mine. We split the bills. We split the taxes. We split the insurance. Everything 50/50. Except he makes 3 times what I make. If I run out of money before payday, well, that's just too bad. I get a lecture on how I need to manage my money better. I constantly get reminded of how I "never have any money" when it comes to something we want to do together and I say "I don't have the money". And since I married him nearly 5 years ago, I've gone through the change of life and it was bad. I still have not gotten my weight under control, no matter what I have tried. I've been to doctors, I've been to dieticians, I've followed STRICT diets to the letter and I'm still 50 pounds overweight. My hair fell out until I was bald in patches. My skin is so dry and itchy that it just peels. It's miserable. I could not sleep more than 20 or 30 minutes at a time for waking up sweating. I have managed to correct that by going to a sleep specialist. 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And it's not like I can put him out of the house and kick him out, though I OWN this house. I can't afford to be without him because at least he pays half the bills. But that's the problem. We are like roommates. Really, that's all we are. And I feel like I'm so ugly now, that I'd never find another husband. I have no friends. In fact, I've NEVER had a single friend in my entire life. Even my Koo-Koo mother has friends, lifelong friends that she goes and does stuff with. I have trouble trusting anyone. I don't trust their motives, I don't trust them not to be talking about me behind my back, I don't trust them not to be stealing my spouse, I don't trust anyone period. I had one wonderful love affair one time. The love of my life. One day, out of the blue, he said "I don't love you anymore...in fact, I don't even think I know what love is." and just like that, it was over. I thought I was going to die. That was one I didn't see coming. I still don't understand what happened. 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